Design, control, and evaluation of a hyper-redundant haptic device

Abstract

The design and control concept of a serial hyper-redundant haptic interface with 10 actuated degrees-of-freedom (DOF) is discussed. The main motivation for the redundant DOF is the avoidance of interior singularities to increase the workspace while reducing the overall device size. Furthermore, the wrist singularities are eliminated resulting in an orientation workspace of 360° around each axis. Hardware experiments evaluating the closed loop performance and the capability of the inverse kinematics solution to avoid singular configurations confirm the applicability of the proposed design and control concept for human haptic interaction. © 2007 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.