This paper aims at presenting a model based compensation command law developed in order to enhance the transparency of haptic interfaces for low mass objects manipulations in virtual environments. After presenting the context and related work of the study, the model based compensation command law is developed and implemented on a 6-dofs haptic interface. Uncertainties of the model (friction coe...

This study presents the development of a video game with audio and haptic interfaces that allows for the stimulation of orientation and mobility skills in people who are blind through the use of virtual environments. We evaluate the usability and the impact of the use of an audio and haptic-based videogame on the development of orientation and mobility skills in school-age blind learners. The r...

The goal of control law design for haptic displays is to provide a safe and stable user interface while maximizing the operator’s sense of kinesthetic immersion in a virtual environment. This paper outlines a control design approach which stabilizes a haptic interface when coupled to a broad class of human operators and virtual environments. Two-port absolute stability criteria are used to deve...

Haptic technology, providing force cues and creating a programmable physical instrument interface, can assist musicians in making gestures. The finite reaction time of the human motor control system implies that the execution of a brief musical gesture does not rely on immediate feedback from the senses, rather it is preprogrammed to some degree. Consequently, we suggest designing relatively si...

This paper describes a multithreaded platform to implement a haptic interface to control a Virtual Reality (VR) model of a 6DoF arm with applications towards rehabilitation robotics. The approach allows the defined threads to execute concurrently, resulting in increased utilization of the processor resources and higher instruction execution rates consistent with a realistic rendering of the tou...

Haptic interface serves as an ideal context and platform for teaching both system dynamics and embedded control. At The University of Michigan, a traditional undergraduate mechanical engineering course in systems dynamics and a new undergraduate electrical engineering course in embedded control systems have been equipped with instructional modules based on two new single-axis haptic interface d...

The introduction of haptic elements in a graphic user interfaces are becoming more widespread. Since haptics are being introduced rapidly into computational tools, investigating how these models affect Human-Computer Interaction would help define how to integrate and model new modes of interaction. The interest of this paper is to discuss and investigate the issues surrounding Haptic and Graphi...

Two haptic interfaces, each able to provide either grounded or ungrounded haptic feedback, were constructed. Tests were conducted to compare a subject’s ability to perform boundary detection and object size discrimination tasks with grounded or ungrounded haptic feedback, with or without vision. Not surprisingly, grounded feedback is better than ungrounded feedback in displaying forces that ste...

In collaboration with the Stanford University Medical Media and Information Technologies center (SUMMIT), Immersion Corporation has designed and developed a new haptic simulation interface for minimally invasive surgical simulators. This device, shown in Figure 1, features two similar master manipulators that each have five degrees of freedom equipped with haptic feedback. The centers of the gi...