Design and Control of a Wire-driven Haptic Device;HapticPen

In this paper, analysis, design, control and prototype construction of a wearable wire-driven haptic interface called HapticPen is discussed. This device can be considered as a wire driven parallel mechanism which three wires are attached to a pen-tip. Wire tensions are provided utilizing three DC servo motors which are attached to a solid frame on the user's body. This device is designed as input as well as output device for a wearable PC. User can write letters or figures on a virtual plate in space. Pen-tip trajectory in space is calculated using motor encoders and force feedback resulting from contact between pen and virtual plate is provided for constraining the pen-tip motion onto the virtual plane that can be easily setup by arbitrary non-collinear three points in space. In this paper kinematic model, workspace analysis, application analysis, control and prototype construction of this device are presented. Preliminary experiments on handwriting in space show feasibility of the proposed device in wearable environments.