Human-Centered Robotics and Interactive Haptic Simulation

A new field of robotics is emerging. Robots are today moving towards applications beyond the structured environment of a manufacturing plant. They are making their way into the everyday world that people inhabit. This paper focuses on models, strategies, and algorithms associated with the autonomous behaviors needed for robots to work, assist, and cooperate with humans. In addition to the new capabilities they bring to the physical robot, these models and algorithms and, more generally, the body of developments in robotics is having a significant impact on the virtual world. Haptic interaction with an accurate dynamic simulation provides unique insights into the real-world behaviors of physical systems. The potential applications of this emerging technology include virtual prototyping, animation, surgery, robotics, cooperative design, and education among many others. Haptics is one area where the computational requirement associated with the resolution in real time of the dynamics and contact forces of the virtual environment is particularly challenging. This paper describes various methodologies and algorithms that address the computational challenges associated with interactive simulations involving multiple contacts and impacts between human-like structures.