Introduction

**Haptic Device for Tele-Presence** FLC : Matthew Kyan
 * EDP 2009 **

= = =** Topic Category **= uP/Instrumentation, Robotics, Software

=** Preamble **= Tele-presence is the idea that we can be “present” in a digital sense, from some remote location. Tele-present Haptic interaction extends the sensation of forces/touch across a network. An example is for remote or virtual surgery, where a human surgeon interacts with a touch sensitive device to control a robotic scalpel that is located remotely. The sense of force/touch is imperative, as the surgeon “feels” tissues that the scalpel is interacting with.

=** Objective **= In this project, we will build a 4-DOG (degrees of freedom) Haptic robotic arm that tracks the motion of another similar looking robotic arm. The 'tracking' robotic arm gripper should be capable of sending the force feedback to the 'user-controlled' gripper to feel the haptic sense. The 'tracking' robotic arm should also possess the collision detection nature and warn the 'user-controlled' arm of any collisions (block the motion).

=** Partial Specifications **= This project is both hardware and software based. A stage-based armature will be designed to allow movement along each of the 3-axis for both the arms. The motion will be tracked using the servo time-pulses at each joint..The servos of the ‘user-controlled’ arm will be slightly modified to enable the position feedback nature of the servos. The force sensor, which will be placed on the gripper of the robotic arm, will send the force feedback to the gripper of the ‘user-controlled’ robotic arm. A collision detection sensor is mounted on the 'tracking arm' to detect any collisions and block the movement of the 'user-controlled' arm when collision is detected. A microcontroller will be used in order to receive the signals from the ‘user-controlled’ arm and send the same signals back to the second arm to move accordingly.

=** Suggested Approach **= The basic principles of a servo will have to be studied thoroughly before going any step further in the project and also simultaneously researching on force feedback on the gripper. The next step is to choose a microcontroller suiting all the basic requirements for this project. The first step after acquiring all the parts is to build the first arm and program the microcontroller to control it using the user-given commands on the computer. The next step is to control the arm manually and read the servo positions on the computer. After this testing process, the second arm will be built and implemented.

=** Group Responsibilities **= · Research the background material for the underlying technologies · Development of the technical specifications, system level designs and identifying challenges and associated design strategies · Meeting the technical objectives · Seamless integration of the system · Design, implementation and testing of the system · Preparing the final technical report

=Block Diagram=