Stiffness rendering on soft tangible devices controlled through inverse FEM simulation
Frédérick Largillière, Eulalie Coevoet, Mario Sanz-Lopez, Laurent Grisoni, Christian Duriez
Abstract
Haptic rendering of soft bodies is essential in medical simulations of procedures such as surgery or palpation. The most commonly used approach is to recreate the sense of touch using a specific design and control of a robotic arm. In this paper, we propose a new approach, based on soft-robotics technology. We create a tangible deformable device that allows users to “touch” soft tissues and perceive mechanical material properties, in a realistic manner. The device is able to dynamically provide user touch with different stiffness perceptions, thanks to actuators placed at the boundaries. We introduce a control algorithm, based on inverse Finite Element Analysis, which controls the actuators in order to recreate a desired stiffness that corresponds to the contact with soft tissues in the virtual environment. The approach uses antagonistic actuation principle to create a wide range of stiffness. We validate our algorithm and demonstrate the method using prototypes based on simple mechanisms.
BibTeX
@inproceedings{iros2016_stiffnessrenderi,
title = {Stiffness rendering on soft tangible devices controlled through inverse FEM simulation},
author = {Frédérick Largillière and Eulalie Coevoet and Mario Sanz-Lopez and Laurent Grisoni and Christian Duriez},
booktitle = {IROS 2016},
year = {2016}
}