SHARP: A System for Haptic Assembly and Realistic Prototyping

Abstract

Virtual Reality (VR) technology holds promise as a virtual prototyping tool for mechanical assembly; however, several developmental challenges still need to be addressed before virtual prototyping applications can successfully be integrated into the product realization process. This paper describes the development of SHARP (System for Haptic Assembly & Realistic Prototyping), a portable VR interface for virtual assembly. SHARP uses physically-based modeling for simulating realistic part-to-part and hand-to-part interactions in virtual environments. A dual handed haptic interface for realistic part interaction using the PHANToM® haptic devices is presented. The capability of creating subassemblies enhances the application's ability to handle a wide variety of assembly scenarios. Swept volumes are implemented for addressing maintainability issues and a network module is added for communicating with different VR systems at dispersed geographic locations. Support for various types of VR systems allows an easy integration of SHARP into the product realization process resulting in faster product development, faster identification of assembly and design issues and a more efficient and less costly product design process. ABSTRACTVirtual Reality (VR) technology holds promise as a virtual prototyping tool for mechanical assembly; however, several developmental challenges still need to be addressed before virtual prototyping applications can successfully be integrated into the product realization process. This paper describes the development of SHARP (System for Haptic Assembly & Realistic Prototyping), a portable VR interface for virtual assembly. SHARP uses physically-based modeling for simulating realistic part-to-part and hand-to-part interactions in virtual environments. A dual handed haptic interface for realistic part interaction using the PHANToM® haptic devices is presented. The capability of creating subassemblies enhances the application's ability to handle a wide variety of assembly scenarios. Swept volumes are implemented for addressing maintainability issues and a network module is added for communicating with different VR systems at dispersed geographic locations. Support for various types of VR systems allows an easy integration of SHARP into the product realization process resulting in faster product development, faster identification of assembly and design issues and a more efficient and less costly product design process.

Virtual reality for assembly methods prototyping: a review

“…Haptic interfaces require much higher computations. In order to complete assembly tasks with tight tolerances, nominal part size modification may be required [93,102]. However, because assembly operations require mating with small clearance, it is generally not possible to assemble low-clearance parts with actual dimensions using physics-based methods.…”

“…Various approaches for providing haptic feedback for assembly have been presented in the past which focused on developing new methods for providing tactile [58,65,74,87,113], collision [100][101][102] and gravitational force feedback [108,114]. The high update rate (~1KHz) requirement for effective haptics has always been a challenge in integrating this technology.…”

“…The demand for highly accurate physics/collision results while maintaining simulation interactivity is still a challenge for the community. In prototyping applications like virtual assembly, attempts have been made to provide collision and tactile forces to the users for more intuitive interaction with the environment [75,95,[100][101][102].…”

Expanding Haptic Workspace for Coupled-Object Manipulation

“…This application, the successor to SHARP [10,11,12,13], provides a virtual reality environment where arbitrary computeraided design (CAD) models can be loaded and manipulated using physically-based modeling and haptic force feedback. It is tuned for use of real-world units throughout to investigate fullscale interaction.…”

VR JuggLua: A framework for VR applications combining Lua, OpenSceneGraph, and VR Juggler

“…The Scriptable Platform for Advanced Research and Teaching in Assembly (SPARTA) is the successor to the System for Haptic Assembly and Realistic Prototyping (SHARP) as developed by Seth et al [22,23,24]. SPARTA is an application built on VR JuggLua in which C++ code performs physically-based simulation of interactions between part models, rendering corresponding haptic force feedback to haptic devices such as the PHANTOM Omni® by Sensable™ and the Virtuose™ 6D35-45 by Haption at a rate of 1000 Hz.…”