Passivity analysis of haptic systems interacting with viscoelastic virtual environment

Passivity analysis of any haptic system requires the knowledge of the environment impedance, i.e., parameters of the employed environment model. There have been a few models proposed to describe the viscoelastic behavior of soft tissues, including the popular Maxwell and Voigt models. This paper analyzes passivity of haptic systems interacting with virtual viscoelastic soft tissues. The Kelvin model is employed to represent better the behavior of the soft tissues. This passivity analysis reveals a new criterion for design and control of the haptic interface. Simulation results show that this new criterion increases the range of passive environment.