Control of a mobile haptic interface

The hardware and control concept of a mobile haptic interface is presented. It is intended to provide spatially unrestricted, dual-handed haptic interaction. The device is composed of two haptic displays mounted on an omnidirectional mobile base which is controlled in such a way that the haptic displays are not driven to their workspace limits. A simple algorithm, based on end-effector positions only, and a more sophisticated approach, incorporating also the body position of the operator, are presented and compared. Experimental results show that the latter algorithm performs better in most use cases.