Factors affecting the Z-Width of a haptic display

Abstract

This paper addresses the performance of force-reflecting interfaces ("haptic displays"). The authors suggest that an important measure of performance is the dynamic range of achievable impedances-"Z-Width"-and that an impedance is achievable if it satisfies a robustness property such as passivity. Several factors affecting Z-Width-sample-and-hold, inherent interface dynamics, displacement sensor quantization, and velocity filtering-are discussed. A set of experiments designed to evaluate these factors is described and experimental results are presented. A striking result is that inherent interface damping exerts an overwhelming influence on Z-Width.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>