Control and evaluation of a new 6-DOF haptic device using a parallel mechanism

Presents the control and evaluation of a haptic device with a 6-DOF parallel mechanism for interfacing with virtual reality. This haptic device has low inertia, high bandwidth, and high output force capability mainly because of base-fixed motors. In addition, it has large orientation workspace due to RRR type spherical joints. A control method is presented with gravity compensation and with force feedback by a F/T sensor to compensate for the effects of unmodeled dynamics such as friction and inertia. Also, dynamic performance has been evaluated for force characteristics such as maximum applicable force, static-friction force, minimum controllable force, and force bandwidth by experiments. Virtual wall simulation with the developed haptic device has been demonstrated.