Design, development and analysis of a one degree of freedom experimental haptic display for virtual reality applications

Virtual reality technology has been developed for training, design, rehabilitation, education and other applications that are very useful. The man drawback of this technology is that it is mainly directed to provide the user a visual experience of the virtual environments and it lacks tactile feedback to make the virtual environment more realistic. Currently, there are many scientists developing what is called "haptic displays " trying to add the sense of touch to the virtual experience. This thesis focuses on the design and development of a single degree of freedom haptic display in order to understand this technology.; A haptic display was designed and developed, as part of this investigation, based on the standard requirements found in literature like minimizing mass and friction and making the design very stiff. A control system for this mechanism was designed based on a model of the system developed as part of this investigation. This control system is based on an internal position loop. The controller can be used to control the impedance of the virtual environment.; The control system for the haptic display developed in this investigation was implemented by using an analog computer. The haptic display can simulate a second order system. After implementing the control system, the model proved to be useful to predict the behavior of the real system. Implementing this system with a digital computer is recommended for future work so the haptic display can be incorporated within virtual environments.