Application of pneumatic parallel manipulator as haptic human interface

Abstract

When human and robot implement a cooperative task, information(intention) transfer between them comes up as an important problem as the task becomes complicated. In this paper, a haptic interface using a pneumatic parallel manipulator is developed to realize `information transfer by means of contact'. Concretely saying, the contact information given by human, namely contact force vector and contact point on the manipulator, is detected by the interface itself and such information are transferred to the robot by being connected with some reference signal. Pneumatic parallel manipulator works as a kind of elastic body even when its position is controlled owing to the air compressibility. Focusing on this characteristic and introducing an idea of compliance center with spherical shell, contact force vector and contact point are detected without force sensor. The validity of proposed method is confirmed through some experiments.