Bracing strategy can improve the stiffness of a lightweight manipulator. A lightweight bracing manipulator provides better maneuverability in gross motions and higher precision in small motions. In order to maintain ...

An existing two degree-of-freedom passive haptic display is used to perform obstacle avoidance tasks. Two types of controllers are examined. One attempts to control the velocity direction of the display's handle in order ...

The role of robotics in society is no longer restricted to assembly and manufacturing. Robots are finding their way into a wide spectrum of tasks that directly link human and machine. Haptic interfaces are robots that are ...

Haptic interfaces are mechanical systems coupled to humans. These devices provide a method of relaying mechanical information between a human and a computer generated environment. A basic element in any virtual environment ...

A laboratory robot with 3m links is modeled using an assumed mode method. The model is compared to experiments and to several theoretical limiting cases. The most demanding comparison is the comparison of frequency response ...

This chapter analyzes the pole and zero locations of a linearly-tapered Euler-Bernoulli beam pinned at one end and free at the other end. Of particular interest is the location of zeros of the transfer function from torque ...

This paper investigates the modeling and control of a new dissipative passive haptic display that uses magneto rheological (MR) brakes as actuators. The device is energetically passive, meaning that it can only remove ...

Experimentation and a survey of the literature clearly show that contact stability in a force reflecting teleoperation system requires high levels of damping on the master robot. However, excessive damping increases the ...

This paper describes the opportunities for improving the cost/performance ratio for industrial robots and other industrial equipment through reduction in their weight. Also described are four approaches to taking advantage ...