HIPHAD · HIGH PRECISION HAPTIC DEVICE DESIGN

While the robots gradually become a part of our daily lives, they already play vital roles in many critical operations. Some of these critical tasks include surgeries, battlefield operations, and tasks that take place in hazardous environments or distant locations. In most of these tasks, remotely controlled robots (teleoperation systems) are used instead of autonomous robots. Haptic subsystems are used in most of the teleoperation systems. These systems are interfaces that provide sense of touch by applying forces, vibrations and/or motions to the human operator. Teleoperation systems must be reliable when used in critical tasks; hence, all of the subsystems must be dependable. Therefore, the haptic subsystems must meet certain goals such as high precision positioning in order to enhance dependability. The project “High Precision Haptic Device Design” aims to improve the precise positioning of haptic devices by using parallel manipulators. Parallel mechanisms are ideal candidates for precision positioning applications. Hence, their multiple kinematic chains provide them with higher load carrying capacity and stiffness. Also, it is a great advantage to use parallel platform mechanisms which are inherently ideal mechanisms for precise positioning to provide vibration isolation at the same time. In addition, semi-active vibration control is proposed to be used by employing magnetorheological technology to configure dampers. The utilization of this design is not limited to assistive robotic surgery application but it is to be used for teleoperation applications with high precision requirements. The applications range from bomb disposal tasks to underwater rescue missions to telesurgeries. Overall, by employing the state-of-the-art haptic device design and control designs, a more reliable and precise system will be developed and configured which will allow these systems to be used in a wider range of critical missions.