High-Fidelity Haptic Interaction with Three-Dimensional Environments using Lorentz Magnetic Levitation

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*** 9802191 Hollis This project builds on results from previous NSF grant IRI9420869: "Magnetic Levitation Haptic Interfaces." The previous grant developed a haptic interface (force/torque feedback) interaction capability for computer users based on Lorentz magnetic levitation. The user interacts with a single moving part with three rotational and three translational degrees of freedom (DOF) floating above the desktop. Combined with advances in physically-based simulation methods, it provided computer users convincingly real haptic (sense of touch) interaction with computers through six-degree-of-freedom (DOF) position input and 6-DOF force/torque output to the user's hand at resolutions of approximately 10 microns and a position bandwidth of approximately 75 Hz. The present effort seeks to make several technology enhancements and to quantitatively measure the psychophysical effectiveness of this approach. Comparisons are being made for haptic interaction with virtual environments and telemanipulation environments, and both of these with real environments to quantitatively clarify the differences between these modes. Methods for robustly "caching" local haptically-relevant regions of the virtual environment are being explored to smoothly synchronize the visual and haptic displays. Psychophysical methods are employed in the design of the human-computer interface to provide a controlled setting for conducting psychophysical measurements. Finally, detailed psychophysical measurements are being performed with the developed experimental system to quantitatively measure the degree of reality provided. The knowledge gained from this work provides needed information for the engineering science of haptic interface design while helping to elucidate the nature of haptic interaction itself. ***