Haptic Technology

Abstract

The basic idea of haptic devices is to provide users with a force feedback information on the motion and/or force that they generate. Haptic devices are useful for tasks where visual information is not sufficient and may induce unacceptable manipulation errors, for example surgery or teleoperation in radioactive/chemical environments.

The aim of haptic devices is to provide the user with a feeling of the situation. In this article we will try to review a particular type of haptic devices, namely those based on parallel mechanisms.

A haptic technology is a force or tactile feedback technology, which allows a user to touch, feel, manipulate, create, and/or alter simulated three-dimensional objects in a virtual environment. Such an interface could be used to train physical skills such as those jobs requiring specialized hand-held tools, for instance, surgeons, astronauts, and mechanics.Or to enable modeling of three dimensional objects without a physical medium such as automobile body designers working with clay models, to mock-up developmental prototypes directly from CAD databases rather than in a machine shop using virtual reality modeling language in conjunction with haptic technology.In addition, haptic help doctors to locate any change in temperature, or tumor in certain part of body without physically being there.

The term haptic is derived from the greek word 'haphe' which means pertaining to touch. The scientific term "haptics" refers to sensing and manipulation through the sense of touch. Although the word haptics may be new to many users, chances are that they are already using haptic interfaces.

Applications Of Haptic Technology

Haptic technology finds wide range of applications as mentioned below:

• Surgical simulation and medical training.

• Physical rehabilitation.

• Training and education.

• Museum display

• Painting, sculpting and CAD.

• Scientific visualization.

• Military application.

Haptic interface                                                                                

During the spring of 1993, MIT's work on haptic has introduced a new haptic interface that came to be called PHANTOM. This quickly commercialized due to strong interest from many colleagues and technically progressive corporations.Right now there are more than hundreds of PHANTOM haptic interfaces worldwide, this could represent an emerging market for haptic interface device.The PHANTOM interface is an electromechanical device small enough to sit on the surface of a desk and connects to a computer's input/output port.