Transmission of operator intention impedance using phantom haptic device

By changing the impedance of a manipulator according to the target object and the type of operation, it is possible to improve the operation efficiency. Researches on how to change the impedance of a slave manipulator in a tele-operation system according to the intention of an operator are underway. However, in most cases, change of the impedance is applied to all directions by the same magnitude or applied only to a certain direction set by the type of operation, since differentiating the impedance by direction usually increases the complexity of a system or its costs. In that context, the present paper proposes a method to measure the direction and magnitude of operator intention impedance only with the existing master device and a single-axis force sensor by detecting the position of the operator´s arm and the grip of the operator´s hand holding the master device. Also, the paper demonstrates the practicality of the proposed method through an experiment with a Phantom haptic device to which an FSR a single-axis force sensor, is integrated.