Interactive assembly simulation with haptic feedback

Abstract

Purpose-The paper aims to present interactive simulation with haptic feedback as a valid method for solving complex assembly problems in the context of industrial product development. Its purpose is to clarify the position of interactive simulation with respect to other methods, and to emphasize its specific value for design engineers.Design/methodology/approach -The paper describes the challenges faced by design engineers in the context of design for assembly and assembly process planning. It introduces and compares automatic path planning and interactive simulation as two different approaches for checking the feasibility of assembly tasks. It provides a review of the scientific challenges and technical issues faced when implementing interactive simulation with haptic feedback in this context. It presents recent research results in the domains of final insertion and human model simulation. Findings-The paper provides an overview of the scientific, technological and practical aspects of interactive simulation with haptic feedback. It explains how this method benefits from the manual skills and cognitive capabilities of the human operator for solving complex assembly problems. It proposes an assessment of the technical maturity using the Technology Readiness Level approach. Originality/value-The paper gives insights about the maturity and usability of interactive assembly simulation with haptic feedback, for the benefit of design engineers seeking new ways to decrease product development time and costs while increasing quality. KeywordsAssembly simulation, production planning, design for assembly Abstract Purpose -The paper aims to present interactive simulation with haptic feedback as a valid method for solving complex assembly problems in the context of industrial product development. Its purpose is to clarify the position of interactive simulation with respect to other methods, and to emphasize its specific value for design engineers. Design/methodology/approach -The paper describes the challenges faced by design engineers in the context of design for assembly and assembly process planning. It introduces and compares automatic path planning and interactive simulation as two different approaches for checking the feasibility of assembly tasks. It provides a review of the scientific challenges and technical issues faced when implementing interactive simulation with haptic feedback in this context. It presents recent research results in the domains of final insertion and human model simulation. Findings -The paper provides an overview of the scientific, technological and practical aspects of interactive simulation with haptic feedback. It explains how this method benefits from the manual skills and cognitive capabilities of the human operator for solving complex assembly problems. It proposes an assessment of the technical maturity using the Technology Readiness Level approach. Originality/value -The paper gives insights about the maturity and usability of interactive assembly simulation with haptic feed...

Peg-in-Hole Revisited: A Generic Force Model for Haptic Assembly

“…Second, switching off part CD altogether results in a failure to detect a possible contact with geometry outside of the insertion area [14]. To the best of our knowledge, the latter problem is also open.…”

“…More recently, an increasing number of studies have leveraged haptic devices to provide a more realistic assembly experience with force feedback, a thorough account of which would require a separate full paper. We refer the reader to [11] for a more comprehensive survey of previous studies, and to [12][13][14] for recent insight on current knowledge and expected future directions in haptic assembly. Here we provide a brief review of the most important techniques along with their advantages and limitations.…”

“…Note than no constraint can be rigidly and strictly satisfied due to the electromechanical restrictions at the haptic device level. Even the DOF-limiting equality constraints are typically enforced by rendering resistance forces using a spring/damper model that penalizes the violation, whose stiffness is upperbounded due to the servo-loop rate of 1 kHz[14].…”

Haptic Assembly Using Skeletal Densities and Fourier Transforms

“…Up until recently, the two-phase framework has been widely accepted as the only promising future direction for performing haptic assembly tasks effectively [11]. Among the main difficulties with this hybrid paradigm are detecting the proximity to an insertion site, properly switching between the two phases (i.e., 'blending' algorithms to turn CD off and activate constraint management [57]), and handling collision events outside the insertion site when CD is switched off for insertion [12]. Furthermore, the ad hoc constraint management solutions are heavily dependent on user input based on a priori knowledge of the type of contact surfaces, which are in turn limited to simple categorized classes of geometric features-e.g., coplanarity of prismatic mates, coaxiallity of cylindrical joints, and alike.…”

“…The 3D translational and rotational gradient vectors can be computed in a componentwise fashion by substituting for the base vectors e ∈ {e 1 , e 2 , e 3 } one at a time in (11) and (12). The complete 6D gradient ∇f SC : SE(3) → C 6 is defined as ∇f SC = (df SC /dt, df SC /dR ), and the geometric force and torque are obtained as (F G , T G ) = −∇E G ∝ {∇f SC } as detailed in [14].…”