Effective Haptic Rendering Method for Complex Interactions

The development of haptic technology is allowing the introduction of Virtual Reality systems as teaching and working tools into many fields such as engineering (Howard & Vance, 2007; Savall et al., 2002) or surgery (Basdogan et al., 2004; Li & Liu, 2006). Haptic devices allow users to interact with a certain environment, either remote or virtual, through the sense of touch, considerably enhancing interactivity. A haptic device is a mechanism that allows users to control the movements of a virtual tool or a real robot and receive tactile and kinesthetic information from the working environment (Fig. 1). The usability of these systems is conditioned by the quality of the haptic feedback applied to the user. Technologically, the computation of appropriate and realistic haptic stimuli continues to be a complicated issue. The human sensory-motor system demands a fast update rate (at least 1 kHz) for the haptic stimuli applied to the user in order to avoid instabilities in