Mechanical intelligence in haptic interfacing with digital worlds

传统上，人类通过五种感官（听觉、视觉、触觉、嗅觉和味觉）与物理环境交换信息和沟通。触觉交互一般指的是触觉。今天，在越来越多的应用程序中，物理环境被数字表示所取代。触觉交互通常需要传递直接的物理接触，例如力或触觉。这通常依赖于仪器机械设备作为人类和数字世界之间的触觉接口。在这个项目中，我们将特别关注交互，其中从数字表示向人类直接传递力是主要元素。这些系统在工业和日常生活的许多领域的应用正在迅速增加。例子包括通过动态模拟表示的与虚拟环境的基于手的交互，例如训练模拟器、虚拟原型环境和康复系统。对于这样的显示器，主要的挑战来自数字环境的接口和由人类用户操作的触觉机制。拟议项目的核心创新是利用机械智能来克服这些系统开发中的基本挑战，并将技术推进到前所未有的高性能水平，从而实现突破性的应用。这项工作直接属于信息和通信技术战略领域和人类与数字信息的互动主题，并将在这些领域为加拿大带来关键的战略利益。这个项目也与其他战略领域相关，因为虚拟环境和原型的使用在制造业和自然资源和能源工业中正在稳步增加。大量的高素质人才将在该项目中接受培训，并获得工业所需的技能。培训将在研究生、本科生和博士后阶段进行。该项目将为学员在广泛的行业工作做好准备，包括模拟和虚拟环境、机器人和触觉、机械设计和分析以及控制工程。

Humans traditionally exchange information and communicate with their physical environment via their five senses: hearing, sight, touch, smell, and taste. Haptic interaction generally refers to the sense of touch. Today, physical environments are replaced with digital representations in an increasing number of applications. Haptic interaction generally requires the transmission of direct physical contact, e.g. forces or tactile sensation. This usually relies on instrumented mechanical devices to serve as haptic interfaces between the human and the digital world. In this project we will particularly focus on interactions where the direct transmission of force from a digital representation to the human is the main element. Application of such systems is rapidly increasing in many areas of industry and everyday life. Examples include hand-based interactions with virtual environments represented via dynamic simulations, such as training simulators, virtual prototyping environments, and rehabilitation systems. For such displays the main challenge stems from the interfacing of the digital environment and the haptic mechanism operated by the human user. The core innovation of the proposed project is the use of mechanical intelligence to overcome fundamental challenges in the development of these systems, and advance the technology to a level of unprecedented, high performance that can lead to breakthrough applications. The work directly falls into the Information and Communication Technologies strategic area and the Human Interaction with Digital Information topic and will bring key strategic benefits to Canada in these areas. This project also has relevance in other strategic areas, as the use of virtual environments and prototyping is steadily increasing in manufacturing and in the natural resources and energy industry. A significant number of highly qualified personnel will be trained in the project, and acquire skills that are highly desired in industry. Training will take place at the graduate, undergraduate and postdoctoral levels. This project will prepare the trainees for work in a broad range of industries including simulation and virtual environments, robotics and haptics, mechanical design and analysis, and control engineering.