Experimental Evaluation of the Projection-based Force Reflection Algorithms for Haptic Interaction with Virtual Environment

Abstract

Haptic interaction with virtual environments is currently a major and growing area of research with a number of emerging applications, particularly in the field of robotics. Digital implementation of the virtual environments, however, introduces errors which may result in instability of the haptic displays. This thesis deals with experimental investigation of the Projection-Based Force Reflection Algorithms (PFRAs) for haptic interaction with virtual environments, focusing on their performance in terms of stability and transparency. Experiments were performed to compare the PFRA in terms of performance for both non-delayed and delayed haptic interactions with more conventional haptic rendering methods, such as the Virtual Coupling (VC) and Wave Variables (WV). The results demonstrated that the PFRA is more stable, guarantees higher levels of transparency, and is less sensitive to decrease in update rates