<title>Electrorheological-fluid-based force feedback device</title>

Abstract

Force feedback from remote or virtual operations is needed for numerous technologies including robotics, teleoperated surgery, games and others. To address this need, the authors are investigating the use of electrorheological fluids (ERF) for their property to change the viscosity under electrical stimulation. This property offers the capability to produce feedback haptic devices that can be controlled in response to remote or virtual stiffness conditions. Forces applied at a robot end-effector due to a compliant environment can be reflected to the user using such an ERF device where a change in the system viscosity in proportion to the force to be transmitted. This paper describes the analytical modeling and experiments that are currently underway to develop an ERF based force feedback element.