Title: Passivity control of a haptic device for the simulation of knobs

Authors: Valentina Colla; Benedetto Allotta

Addresses: PERCRO TeCIP, Scuola Superiore Sant'Anna, Viale Rinaldo Piaggio, 34, Pontedera (Pisa), Italy. ' Department of Energy Engineering 'Sergio Stecco', University of Florence, Via Santa Marta 3, Florence, Italy

Abstract: Knobs are one of the details from which household appliances are commonly judged by the customers. Although very subjective, the customers| requirements reflect real needs, such as robustness and easy use; therefore the design of knobs and buttons, that are the most widely used end-user interfaces, is of utmost importance from the commercial point of view and requires careful investigation. A mechatronic device has been designed to simulate the knobs| behaviour for supporting an extensive campaign of end-users tests. The impedance control approach is applied exploiting a model of the actuator. However, as the acceleration information is extracted through double differentiation of position measurements, the inertia cannot be compensated; this can sometimes compromise the stability. The stability problem is therefore addressed through the time-domain passivity control approach, which guarantees stability and is easy to implement, but produces a slight decrease in performance, namely a mismatch between desired and real torque.

Keywords: haptic interface; human-machine interaction; HMI; mechatronics; simulation; passivity control; knobs; household appliances; knob design; button design; user interfaces; impedance control; torque.

DOI: 10.1504/IJAMECHS.2011.043379

International Journal of Advanced Mechatronic Systems, 2011 Vol.3 No.4, pp.304 - 311

Published online: 18 Mar 2015 *

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