• Journal of Institute of Control, Robotics and Systems
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• v.4 no.4
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• pp.464-478
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• 1998

In teleoperation, it is important for an operator to feel as if he really were in a distant place. To realize this objective, the various information from a remote site must be presented to the operator. Even though tactile information is very important to efficiently execute a task, it is not yet sufficiently provided for the operator. In this paper, we propose the new mechanism that can provide the more dexterous tactile information to the operator This device utilizing the electromagnetic force is designed to be compact and light enough to be attached to the fingerpad, and designed to be controlled continuously. The magnetic circuit is derived by the probable flux paths method in order to take forces at any given dimension. An optimization technique is also proposed to maximize the tactile force that humans can perceive under the same conditions. The objective function is formulated as maximizing displacements indented on the fingerpad, considering the mechanism of human tactile perception. The optimization formulation is subject to the geometric and rising temperature constraints in the coil. It is demonstrated that, by optimization, the tactile force increases by 24%, compared with that obtained from the initial design.