Predicting force feedback of cutting interactions for haptic bilateral teleoperation

Abstract

Haptic bilateral teleoperation aims to create systems, where human precision and dexterity can be applied over long distances with the aid of robotic devices. These systems could make remote surgery or spacecraft repair a reality. The main challenge for such systems is latency. TU Delft's Networked Systems group is developing a teleoperation system, which combines predicted force feedback with delayed vision feedback. This project investigates the force feedback prediction of cutting interactions by implementing a simple physics based model to estimate the forces of cutting objects with a knife in a haptic simulation. The quality of the interaction and impact of visual delay is evaluated in a user study. It is found that a simple physics based cutting model can create convincing cutting interactions, which users find to be sufficiently controllable up to a delay of 75ms.