Towards position feedback control interfaces: application to a virtual assembly of flexible parts

Virtual assembly/disassembly (A/D) study during the product design is an important aspect to improve the performance and quality of products. Usually, existing virtual reality (VR) systems allow to simulate the A/D operations of rigid parts. However, it is difficult to model accurately the virtual A/D operations of flexible parts given their complex behavior. The aim of this work is to analyze current VR interfaces for their application in A/D of flexible parts. Current VR devices are mainly restricted to the specification of geometric input data for virtual A/D. This is not physically correct from the point of view of user's action generation and does not take into account particularities of flexible part's behavior. To this end, different experiments have been performed to justify some limits of the use of current VR devices in realistic flexible part simulation. The necessity of position control device development is justified to supply satisfactory results during the A/D of flexible parts.