Design and characterization of a haptic paddle for dynamics education

A single axis force feedback device known as a haptic paddle has been implemented as a teaching tool at several universities with different designs and emphases. Presented here is a low-cost haptic paddle design that increases the ease with which students can assemble and perform virtual environment experiments over that of previously presented designs, without decreasing the haptic performance below acceptable levels. We present a frequency domain system identification and Z-Width performance characterization of the new design alongside a comparison to the previous Rice University haptic paddle design. Lastly, we discuss the benefits of new real-time hardware, an easy-to-use Field-Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), implemented with the haptic paddle.