In-House Built Robust and Adaptable System Architecture for Virtual Reality Haptic Interface

Abstract

This work presents an in-house built, expandable and flexible system architecture for controlling the robotic motion and supply power to a full-body scale virtual reality (VR) haptic interface named, ForceBot. This VR haptic interface maps the human pilot motion into a virtual avatar, and applies force feedback that results in a high-fidelity sensory of live interaction. ForceBot applies haptic feedback on hands through a pair of pneumatically actuated wearable VR haptic gloves which creates an artificial sense of touch in user’s hands. The robotic arms and the gantry systems are connected to the user’s arms and feet by mounting on a base frame alongside the human pilot. The measured forces are used to synchronize the robot’s motion with the human by allowing a transparent experience during movement and governing desired interaction forces. The whole system architecture consists of mainly three sections: a central computer, a VR computer, and robotic sub-systems. Further, the in-house developed motor control unit ensures the motor behaviour with safety and efficiency for distributing the large amount of electrical power required for the gait simulator to provide support and generate rapid motion. Overall, this system framework can be helpful for the designers and researchers to further study the control and interaction between the robotic motion and the human pilot under VR environments.