Haptic Devices Evaluation for Industrial Use

The current study concerns the Assembly/Disassembly (A/D) process. Despite the latest improvements, the creation of a fully realistic VE is still challenging because of the complexity of the physical processes involved and the current limitations of the available VR technology. In this context, the main purpose of this research is to improve the A/D process simulation by proposing a new method and associated tools, as well as a better integration with haptic devices. To this end, the first objective, regarding the software application, is to develop and evaluate the impact of a mobility module based on predefined kinematic constraints between the assembly components, able to guide user’s movements when performing A/D operations simulation. This can be achieved through the intelligent management of the assembly components relative mobilities in contact situations. The second objective, regarding the hardware aspects, is to determine if the described approach, along with a new moderate cost haptic system, could represent an interesting solution for industrial use. In this sense, a comparison between the A/D simulation qualities provided by two commercial haptic devices (basic equipment with 3 DoF force feedback versus an expensive system with 6 DoF force feedback) was performed and it is presented in this paper. Conclusions were drawn after series of tests conducted by a target group composed of 20 people with engineering background.