Engineering data compendium. Human perception and performance. User's guide

The concept underlying the Engineering Data Compendium was the product of a research and development program (Integrated Perceptual Information for Designers project) aimed at facilitating the application of basic research findings in human performance to the design and military crew systems. The principal objective was to develop a workable strategy for: (1) identifying and distilling information of potential value to system design from the existing research literature, and (2) presenting this technical information in a way that would aid its accessibility, interpretability, and applicability by systems designers. The present four volumes of the Engineering Data Compendium represent the first implementation of this strategy. This is the first volume, the User's Guide, containing a description of the program and instructions for its use

Stability Boundary and Design Criteria for Haptic Rendering of Virtual Walls

This paper is about haptic simulations of virtual walls, which are represented by a discrete PD-control. A normalized discrete-time transfer function is used to derive the fundamental stability boundaries for this problem. Hereby, the case of direct action and the more often case of an one sampling step delayed action are addressed. Inside the stable region the set of all parameters was determined that result in real system poles. Furthermore, three dierent design criteria are compared to nd optimum control parameters for the virtual wall. Finally, important conclusions for haptic simulations are derived

Beyond multimedia adaptation: Quality of experience-aware multi-sensorial media delivery

Multiple sensorial media (mulsemedia) combines multiple media elements which engage three or more of human senses, and as most other media content, requires support for delivery over the existing networks. This paper proposes an adaptive mulsemedia framework (ADAMS) for delivering scalable video and sensorial data to users. Unlike existing two-dimensional joint source-channel adaptation solutions for video streaming, the ADAMS framework includes three joint adaptation dimensions: video source, sensorial source, and network optimization. Using an MPEG-7 description scheme, ADAMS recommends the integration of multiple sensorial effects (i.e., haptic, olfaction, air motion, etc.) as metadata into multimedia streams. ADAMS design includes both coarse- and fine-grained adaptation modules on the server side: mulsemedia flow adaptation and packet priority scheduling. Feedback from subjective quality evaluation and network conditions is used to develop the two modules. Subjective evaluation investigated users' enjoyment levels when exposed to mulsemedia and multimedia sequences, respectively and to study users' preference levels of some sensorial effects in the context of mulsemedia sequences with video components at different quality levels. Results of the subjective study inform guidelines for an adaptive strategy that selects the optimal combination for video segments and sensorial data for a given bandwidth constraint and user requirement. User perceptual tests show how ADAMS outperforms existing multimedia delivery solutions in terms of both user perceived quality and user enjoyment during adaptive streaming of various mulsemedia content. In doing so, it highlights the case for tailored, adaptive mulsemedia delivery over traditional multimedia adaptive transport mechanisms

Design and analysis of a haptic device design for large and fast movements

Haptic devices tend to be kept small as it is easier to achieve a large change of stiffness with a low associated apparent mass. If large movements are required there is a usually a reduction in the quality of the haptic sensations which can be displayed. The typical measure of haptic device performance is impedance-width (z-width) but this does not account for actuator saturation, usable workspace or the ability to do rapid movements. This paper presents the analysis and evaluation of a haptic device design, utilizing a variant of redundant kinematics, sometimes referred to as a macro-micro configuration, intended to allow large and fast movements without loss of impedance-width. A brief mathematical analysis of the design constraints is given and a prototype system is described where the effects of different elements of the control scheme can be examined to better understand the potential benefits and trade-offs in the design. Finally, the performance of the system is evaluated using a Fitts’ Law test and found to compare favourably with similar evaluations of smaller workspace devices

Effective methods for human-robot-environment interaction by means of haptic robotics

University of Technology, Sydney. Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology.Industrial robots have been widely used to perform well-defined repetitive tasks in carefully constructed simple environments such as manufacturing factories. The futuristic vision of industrial robots is to operate in complex, unstructured and unknown (or partially known) environments, to assist human workers in undertaking hazardous tasks such as sandblasting in steel bridge maintenance. Autonomous operation of industrial robots in such environments is ideal, but semi-autonomous or manual operation with human interaction is a practical solution because it utilises human intelligence and experience combined with the power and accuracy of an industrial robot. To achieve the human interaction operation, there are several challenges that need to be addressed: environmental awareness, effective robot-environment interaction and human-robot interaction. This thesis aims to develop methodologies that enable natural and efficient Human- Robot-Environment Interaction (HREI) and apply them in a steel bridge maintenance robotic system. Three research issues are addressed: Robot-Environment-Interaction (REI), haptic device and robot interface and intuitive human-robot interaction. To enable efficient robot-environment interaction, a potential field-based Virtual Force Field (VF2) approach has been investigated. The VF2 approach includes an Attractive Force (AF) method and a force control algorithm for robot motion control, and a 3D Virtual Force Field (3D-VF2) method for real-time collision avoidance. Results obtained from simulation, experiments in a laboratory setup and field test have verified and validated these methods. A haptic device-robot interface has been developed for providing intuitive human-robot interaction. Haptic devices are normally small compared to industrial robots. Thus, the workspace of a haptic device is much smaller than the workspace of a big industrial manipulator. A novel workspace mapping method, which includes drifting control, scaling control and edge motion control, has been investigated for mapping a small haptic workspace to the large workspace of manipulator with the aim of providing natural kinesthetic feedback to an operator and smooth control of robot operation. A haptic force control approach has also been studied for transferring the virtual contact force (between the robot and the environment) and the inertia of the manipulator to the operator's hand through a force feedback function. Human factors have significant effect on the performance of haptic-based human-robot interaction. An eXtended Hand Movement (XHM) model for eye-guided hand movement has been investigated in this thesis with the aim of providing natural and comfortable interaction between a human operator and a robot, and improving the operational performance. The model has been studied for increasing the speed of the manipulator while maintaining the control accuracy. This model is applied into a robotic system and it has been verified by various experiments. These theoretical methods and algorithms have been successfully implemented in a steel bridge maintenance robotic system, and tested in both laboratory and a bridge maintenance site located in Sydney

Manipulator design for a haptic system with improved performance

This paper presents the work carried out to improve the design of an existing kinesthetic haptic device. The proposed improvement is designated for enhancing this device’s impedance width which is a common metric in performance evaluation of haptic devices. In this study, kinematic design optimization, static balancing, constructional design enhancement and actuation system design studies are presented.The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (grant number 117M405

Mechanical impedance

International audienceMechanical impedance is a transposition to mechanics of the term impedance that is used and defined in circuit theory. The theory of circuit (theory of Kirchhoff networks) is basically applicable to electric networks but can be considered more generally as a unifying simplified theory of physics available in several domains like mechanics, electromagnetism, aero-acoustics and fluids mechanics

Robot Impedance Control and Passivity Analysis with Inner Torque and Velocity Feedback Loops

Impedance control is a well-established technique to control interaction forces in robotics. However, real implementations of impedance control with an inner loop may suffer from several limitations. Although common practice in designing nested control systems is to maximize the bandwidth of the inner loop to improve tracking performance, it may not be the most suitable approach when a certain range of impedance parameters has to be rendered. In particular, it turns out that the viable range of stable stiffness and damping values can be strongly affected by the bandwidth of the inner control loops (e.g. a torque loop) as well as by the filtering and sampling frequency. This paper provides an extensive analysis on how these aspects influence the stability region of impedance parameters as well as the passivity of the system. This will be supported by both simulations and experimental data. Moreover, a methodology for designing joint impedance controllers based on an inner torque loop and a positive velocity feedback loop will be presented. The goal of the velocity feedback is to increase (given the constraints to preserve stability) the bandwidth of the torque loop without the need of a complex controller.Comment: 14 pages in Control Theory and Technology (2016