A 6-DOF force-reflecting hand controller using the fivebar parallel mechanism

A force-reflecting hand controller can provide the kinesthetic information obtained from a slave manipulator to the operator of a telerobotic system. Our goal is to construct a compact hand controller that can provide large workspace and good force-reflecting capability. This paper presents the design and the analysis of a 6-DOF force-reflecting hand controller using fivebar parallel mechanisms. The forward kinematics of the fivebar parallel mechanism has been calculated in real-time using three pin-joint sensors in addition to six actuator position sensors. A force decomposition approach is used to compute the Jacobian. To evaluate the characteristics of the fivebar parallel mechanism, it has been compared with the other three parallel mechanisms in terms of workspace and manipulability measure. The hand controller using the fivebar parallel mechanism has been constructed and tested to verify the feasibility of the design concept and the force reflecting control schemes