Scalable Distributed Networked Haptic Cooperation: Haptic Interaction across Online Social Networks

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The web enables numerous social interactions in digital space, including sharing information, meeting people, participating in online communities. Notably absent is support for haptic (force, touch) interactions. Yet, haptic cooperation across online social networks may completely transform human interactions in digital space. Promising applications range from virtual surgical training among multiple expert and novice surgeons to physical tele-rehabilitation and to online multiuser computer games. These are all areas of critical importance for maintaining Canada's prominence in the global knowledge-based economy. The proposed research will enable haptic cooperation across online social networks, by developing a distributed haptic control strategy that allows users to join/leave the interaction like they join/leave a Skype meeting today. However, scalable haptic cooperation presents tremendous challenges: (1) a low rate of haptic data transmission among users due to the limited throughput of the communication network; (2) a changing number of cooperating users due to participants logging in/out of the haptic social network site; (3) heterogeneous dynamics of the users and of the haptic interfaces; (4) non-deterministic delays and packet losses across the communication network. Existing networked haptic cooperation control strategies address these difficulties only in part and cannot be used to support haptic interaction across online social networks. The proposed research will contribute to the fundamental understanding and the unified design framework of distributed control strategies which enable haptic interaction among a varying number of users connected across unreliable networks. The work will integrate: (1) switched systems concepts, to model participant changes during the interaction and achieve scalability; (2) stochastic system concepts to account for limitations of practical networks; and (3) passivity and cooperative control concepts, to ensure consistent behavior of the manipulated virtual object at all user sites for a wide range of haptic device and operator dynamics and in the presence of unreliable communications.