Realistic Manipulation of Virtual Robot in Dynamic Virtual Environment

Virtual Robotics is becoming a very important tool for supporting research and graduate and undergraduate programs in the Robotics area. In the last years, the success of virtual reality systems is depending on the techniques developed to provide the user with easy and realistic interaction with virtual environments. In this paper we present an interaction technique to manipulate a robot in virtual environment considering the physically based modeling and haptic sensation. The interaction technique used is based on the application of spring-dampers connecting a model of the robot (with kinematic behavior) with other model with dynamic behavior. We made a comparison study for the application of torsional spring-dampers and linear spring-dampers in order to establish the convenience spring-damper for the robot stabilization during its manipulation and during the tasks execution. We observed that the technique based on linear spring-damper keeps more stabilized the virtual robot than torsional spring-damper technique. The virtual robot manipulation is performed, by the user, with a Phantom Omni™ haptic device, which allows transmitting contact force sensations to the user.