CAREER: Passivity-Based Distributed Frameworks for Multiuser Shared Haptic Collaboration over the Internet

该项目的主要目标是为分布在不同地理位置的多个用户通过互联网进行稳健稳定和高保真的共享触觉协作奠定理论基础。为此，该项目利用：1)每个用户的实时响应的分布式体系结构？无论互联网如何，S触觉反馈？S延迟；以及2)被动(整个分布式体系结构)作为与广泛的异类人类用户进行触觉交互的稳健稳定的手段。更具体地说，该项目重点研究了以下三个关键研究任务：1)离散时间被动触觉模拟算法，用于共享虚拟环境的一致/可扩展部署，特别是在(计算上)不同的用户之间；2)基于触觉令人信服的基于物理的被动分层模型简化框架，以减轻通信/计算负担，特别是在共享虚拟环境是大规模的情况下；3)基于Internet的高性能被动本地副本同步框架，以获得清晰/稳定的共享触觉体验，以及通信不完善时的基本性能限制。通过提供系统和理论框架，该项目将极大地促进当前技术的发展，主要是启发式的、特别的和定性的。该项目还有望为一般触觉/远程机器人以及邻近的研究领域产生新的结果/观点/框架。该项目奠定的理论基础将使许多强大的应用更加贴近现实(如虚拟协同手术培训、制造前产品评估、虚拟协同雕塑、触觉网络游戏等)。也许更重要的是，这个项目可能会从根本上改变我们在网络空间中相互交流的方式。该项目的教育/传播活动将包括：开发新的实践和研究级别的机器人课程；学生咨询/辅导，特别是针对少数族裔学生；K-12年级学生，特别是女性学生的触觉夏令营；在当地高中举行研讨会和公开示范；项目网站、国际合作和书籍写作。

The main goal of this project is to develop theoretical foundations for robustly-stable and high-fidelity shared haptic collaboration among geographically-distributed multiple users over the Internet. For this, the project utilizes: 1) distributed architecture for real-time responsiveness of each user?s haptic feedback regardless of Internet?s latency; and 2) passivity (of total distributed architecture) as a means for robust-stability of haptic interaction with a wide-range of heterogeneous human users. More specifically, the project focuses and investigates the following three key research tasks: 1) discrete-time passive haptic simulation algorithms for consistent/scalable deployment of the shared virtual environment, particularly among (computationally) heterogeneous users; 2) haptically-convincing physics-based passive hierarchical model reduction frameworks to mitigate communication/computing burdens, particularly when the shared virtual environment is of large-scale; and 3) high-performance passive local replica synchronization frameworks over the Internet for crisp/stable shared haptic experience, and fundamental performance limitation given communication imperfectness.By providing systematic and theoretical frameworks, this project will significantly advance the current state of the art, which is largely heuristic, ad-hoc and qualitative. This project is also expected to produce new results/perspectives/frameworks for general haptics/telerobotics as well as for adjacent research fields. The theoretical foundations laid by this project will make many powerful applications closer to reality (e.g. virtual collaborative surgical training, pre-manufacturing product evaluation, virtual collaborative sculpting, haptically-enabled networked games, etc). Perhaps more importantly, this project may fundamentally change how we interact with each other in the cyberspace. Education/dissemination activities of this project will include: development of new hands-on and research-level robotics courses; student advising/mentoring, particularly for minority students; haptics summer camp for K-12, particularly for female students; seminars in local high schools and public demonstrations; project web site, international collaboration, and book writing.