Haptic Hardware

Just like a monitor provides visual feedback to a computer user, haptic hardware provides force feedback to the user. Force feedback can increase the realism or immersion in a virtual environment by letting you feel the forces on the steering wheel when playing a race game, or letting a surgeon s feel the forces when pulling on tissue.

The most widely available haptic hardware are the force feedback joysticks and steering wheels for gaming. This page will list haptic interfaces for professional use. These devices are in general more complex and let the user to feel more detailed and accurate forces.

One difference between gaming force feedback devices and these devices are the number of degrees of freedom (dof): while a steering wheel has only 1 (rotation), a joystick has 2 dof (forward/backward movement, and right/left).

Commercially Available Haptic Interfaces

This is a list of commercially available haptic interfaces. They are ordered by company in alphabetic order.

ForceDimension

Force Dimension is a swiss company, based out of Lausanne, with strong ties to the EPFL. Their designs all use a parallel mechanism and active gravity compensation. The parallel mechanism results in a high stiffness. At world haptics 2007 the company showed a 5 DOF model as well.

The 3DOF Omega haptic device.

The 3DOF Delta haptic device provides a larger workspace then the Omega.

The 6DOF Delta haptic device.

Haption

Haption is a French company that makes three haptic interfaces with a serial mechanism.

Virtuose_3D15-25

Virtuose_6D35-45.jpg

Virtuose_6D40-40

Immersion

Immersion is probably the biggest haptic company. They hold many patents and their haptic technology can found in many consumer products. I'm listing two examples of their haptic hardware. Check out their site for more products.

The Laparoscopic Surgical Workstation is an interface that simulates 2 laparoscopic surgical instruments. Each instrument has 5dof of force feedback.

The Immersion Cyberforce combines 2 products: the CyberGrasp gives force feedback to the fingers (The black glove-like device). The silver arm provides global force feedback to the hand. The goal is to simulate both individual finger forces as well as grounded forces to the hand.

Mimic Technologies

Mimic Technologies is a Seattle, USA, based company that was started by Jeff Berkley from the University of Washington's HITLab. Their haptic interface differs from other commercially available devices in that it is 'tension' based: wires pull on the device as can be seen from the picture below.

The Mimic Mantris.

Moog FCS Robotics

Moog FCS Robotics is a Dutch company that makes the Haptic Master: a 3DOF haptic interface that can output a peak force of 250N. It is the only commercially available haptic interface with admittance (force) control: it controls the force output thourgh measurement of the actual force at the end-effector. The device is often used for robot assisted rehabilitation. Rumour has it that they will have a 5 and 6 DOF version out soon, based on two Haptic Masters.

Novint Technologies

Novint makes the lowest cost haptic device on the market. While most haptic device have prices ranging from somewhere in between the Echo to Porche range, you can pick up Novint's Falcon for about $250. Rumour has it that it was designed by the guys at ForceDimension and that it actually feels quite good, especially considering its price. Available from june 2007.

The Novint Falcon 3DOF.

MPB Technologies

MPB Technologies is a Canadian company, based out of Montreal. They make the Cubic, a haptic interface based on a parallel mechanism, and the Freedom6, a haptic interface based on a serial mechanism. The Freedom 6S' original design came out of Professor Hayward's lab at McGill University.

The Cubic

The Freedom 6S: a 6DOF device with very low friction, inertia, and backlash.

The Freedom 7S: The 7DOF version of the Freedom6 (additional grippers).

Quansar

Quanser is a Canadian company that offers a wide variety of haptic devices. The 3DOF pantograph and 5 DOF twin-pantograph were orginally developed in Prof. Salcudean's lab at the University of British Columbia.

The 2DOF planar pantograph

The 3dof Mirage model"Haptic Wand".

The 3DOF planar pantograph

The 5dof twin-pantograph "Haptic Wand".

Sensable
Sensable is a US company, based out of Woburn, near Boston. It's line of 'Phantom' devices has sold more than 3000 since it came on the market in 1994.

The Phantom Omni device: the lowest priced 3DOF device on the market today (early 2006).

The Phantom Premium 6DOF

The Phantom 3.0 6DOF with a large workspace.

Xitact

Xitact is a Swiss company, based in Lausanne. It makes haptic interfaces for simulation of medical procedures. Xitact has recently merged with Mentice Coorportation.

The Xitact IHP for simulating an endoscopic instrument for minimally invasive surgery.

The Xitact CHP for simulating interventional procedures of different kinds: cardiology, peripheral interventions, and interventional radiology.

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Haptic Quality VS Cost
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