Object Representations for Force Feedback Applications

The proposed Phase I research will define an object representation scheme which can be used to successfully integrate force feedback into synthetic environments and virtual reality applications. Integration of force feedback into existing synthetic environment applications is very difficult primarily because the systems were not designed for force feedback. We propose to solve the problem of force feedback integration by addressing the very foundation of all synthetic environment systems: the object representation technique. The object representation must be able to flexibly represent complex objects, facilitate calculations of force vectors, provide a simple interface to force feedback devices and allow effective representation of object properties such as weight and texture. We will design the force feedback oject representation scheme by expanding our knowledge in the area, evaluating representations with the objective of force feedback integration and leverage our extensive knowledge of force feedback we have gained through the development of a 6DOF PER-Force force feedback handcontroller and its integration into telerobotics and molecular modeling applications.