Transparency of a Phantom premium haptic interface for active and passive human interaction

This paper compares two methods for determining the transparency bandwidth of an impedance based haptic interface with a Phantom 1.0 A haptic device. Active user induced (AUI) interaction tests, where the system excitation is generated by a human user, show that transparency bandwidth is limited to approximately 2 Hz. Passive user induced (PUI) interaction tests, where the system excitation is generated by the haptic device with a passive human operator, show that bandwidth can extend up to 50 Hz. Experimental results show that the apparent bandwidth limitations for the AUI interaction tests are dependent on the human user´s inability to excite higher frequencies. Consequently, this measurement approach is insufficient for determining system bandwidth of the human operator-haptic interface system. Furthermore, data seem to indicate that there is no appreciable difference in the ability of the Phantom manipulator to display environmental impedances in either AUI or PUI interactions regardless of the user.