Teleoperation Mediated Through Magnetic Levitation: Recent Results

Abstract

We present design and performance data for a coarse-fine teleoperation system with bilateral force reflection. The system uses a 6-DOF Lorentz magnetic levitation master device to control a 6-DOF fine-positioning Lorentz magnetic levitation slave device mounted on a 6-DOF PUMA manipulator. This coarse-fine arrangement serves to expand the workspace of the slave device while retaining its frictionless characteristics, high position resolution and high bandwidth. Using this system, we are beginning to perform psychophysical measurements on human operators performing real, virtual, and real-remote 3-D haptic manipulation tasks with each scenario using the same 6-DOF master device. In the virtual task scenario, interactions are rendered haptically from a synthetic model. In the real task scenario, the manipulandum of the haptic device interacts by direct mechanics with a real environment. In the remote-real scenario, interactions with a remote real task environment are mediated through the teleoperation system. In all three scenarios, visual feedback is provided by a graphical display.