Dynamic data reproduction of contact environment with state transition

Nowadays, fields that employ advanced techniques require a new type of education system that can reproduce a haptic sensation repeatedly. The environment-copying system has been developed for such an education system. The system is based on the bilateral control and can store and reproduce haptic data so that an operator can feel haptic sensation at any time and anywhere. Conventional environment-copying systems only treat the environment that has elastic characteristic. To solve this problem, two systems are proposed in this paper. One is the environment-identification system, wherein the saved force is divided into the force affected by the stiffness and the momentum of damper, using the Fourier transform to represent the environment with the identified mechanical impedance. The other is the state-to-state transition system, wherein the condition of the environment is considered from the view point of system connection. By using this system, dynamic environments such as these with nonlinear behavior can be expressed. The validity of the proposal is confirmed through experiments, and the experimental results show that the proposed system can satisfactorily store and reproduce the environment.