Hardness Rendering Method in Teleoperation System using Force Waveform Generated at Collision

Abstract

A teleoperation system with a haptic device can present a reaction force generated when a robot contacts an environment. However, expressing an impact force resulting from tapping a hard object is difficult in a haptic device. There is a method of rendering a hard object by overlaying vibrations, but an index of hardness perception is necessary to determine the output of vibrations so as to be equivalent to the hardness perceived by the impact force. Therefore, in this study, based on previous studies, we propose an index of hardness perception using the bandpass filter that imitates the response characteristics of Pacinian corpuscles and the collision speed, and evaluated by the hardness rendering in a haptic device. As a result of experiments, we showed that there is a correlation between the hardness rendered by the haptic device and the proposed index of hardness perception. In addition, we showed a hardness rendering method using the index in a teleoperation system and examined the effect of the method. As a result, we confirmed that the hardness according to the index can be rendered in real time in a haptic device even if an object is unknown.