Uniting Haptic Exploration and Display

This work develops a methodology for building haptic reality-based modeling systems by exploiting the complementary goals of haptic exploration and display. While the generally unstructured nature of haptic exploration makes it diÆcult to develop and control autonomous robotic ngers, simultaneous consideration of exploration and display provides a way to characterize the required sensing, control, nger geometry, and haptic modeling components. Both the exploring robot and haptic display must complement an appropriate virtual model, which can accurately recreate remote or hazardous environments. We present an example of haptic exploration, modeling and display for surface features explored using a three-degree-of-freedom spherical robotic ngertip with a tactile sensor.