On the role of dissipation in haptic systems

Passivity theory has been used for the past decade to derive stability conditions for human/machine interface applications. Demonstrating passivity of the haptic display implies stable and safe interaction for the human user. At the heart of the stability analysis is the physical dissipation provided by the haptic device, as it plays a key role in the design process for all components. This paper will derive the condition that the haptic device must satisfy in order to achieve passivity of the haptic display. These results will be used to investigate a general nonlinear device model.