27-07-2012, 03:41 PM
HAPTICS SYSTEMS
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ABSTRACT
‘Haptics’ is a technology that adds the sense of touch to virtual environments.Users are given the illusion that they are touching or manipulating a real physical object.Haptic interfaces allows the user to feel as to see virtual objects on a computer and so we can give an illusion of touching surfaces,shaping virtual clay or moving objects around.The sensation of touch is the brain’s most effective learning mechanism more effective than seeing or hearing which is why the new technology holds so much promise as a technology tool.
Haptic technology is like exploring the virtual world with a stick.If you push the stick into a virtual balloon push back.The computer communicates sensations through a haptic interface –a stick,scalpel,racket or pen that is connected to a force-excerting motors.With this technology we can now sit down at a computer terminal and touch objects that exist only in the mind of the computer.By using special input and output devices(joystick,datagloves or other devices) users can receive feedback from computer application in the form of felt sensation in the hand or other parts of the body.In combination with a visual display,haptics technology can be used to train people for tasks requiring hand-eye co-ordination,such as surgery and space ship maneuvers.
In this it explicate how sensors and actuators are used for tracking the position and movement of the haptic device moved by the operator.Then mention the different types of force rendering algorithms,then we move on to a few applications of haptic technology.Finally we conclude by mentioning a future development.
1. INTRODUCTION
1.1 What is ‘Haptics’?
Haptic technology refers to technology that interfaces the user with a virtual environment via the sense of touch by applying forces, vibrations, and/or motions to the user. This mechanical stimulation may be used to assist in the creation of virtual objects (objects existing only in a computer simulation), for control of such virtual objects, and to enhance the remote control of machines and devices (teleoperators). This emerging technology promises to have wide-reaching applications as it already has in some fields. For example, haptic technology has made it possible to investigate in detail how the human sense of touch works by allowing the creation of carefully controlled virtual objects. These objects are used to systematically probe human haptic capabilities, which would otherwise be difficult to achieve. These new research tools contribute to our understanding of how touch and its underlying brain functions work. Although haptic devices are capable of measuring bulk or forces that are applied by the user, it should not to be confused with touch or tactile sensors that measure the pressure or force exerted by the user to the interface.
The term haptic originated from the Greek word πτικός ἁ (haptikos) meaning pertaining to the sense of touch and comes from the Greek verb πτεσθαι ( haptesthai) meaning to “contact” or “touch”.
1.2 History of Haptics
In the early 20th century, psychophysicists introduced the word haptics tolabel the subfield of their studies that addressed human touch-based perceptionand manipulation. In the 1970s and 1980s, significant research efforts in acompletely different field, robotics also began to focus on manipulation andperception by touch. Initially concerned with building autonomous robots, researchers soon found that building a dexterous robotic hand was much more complex and subtle than their initial naives have suggested.
In time these two communities, one that sought to understand the human hand and one that aspired to create devices with dexterity inspired by human abilities found fertile mutual interest in topics such as sensory design and processing, grasp control and manipulation, object representation and haptic information encoding, and grammars for describing physical tasks.
In the early 1990s a new usage of the word haptics began to emerge. The confluence of several emerging technologies made virtualized haptics, or computer haptics possible. Much like computer graphics, computer haptics enables the display of simulated objects to humans in an interactive manner. However, computer haptics uses a display technology through which objects canbe physically palpated.