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A system for kinesthetic and visual display of virtual environments has been developed which includes a four degree-of-freedom, force-controlled manipulation and a parallel processing architecture for performing real-time environment simulation, manipulation control, and graphics display. The system allows a user to interact with a virtual environment via a virtual hand tool. 'Forces' at the handle of the virtual tool are experienced as real forces at the handle of the manipulandum. The problem of modeling environments composed of rigid bodies with intermittent contact has been addressed. Dynamic equations for environment simulations are generated and solved in real time by an array of interconnected microprocessors. Additional microprocessors safeguard against dangerous motor accelerations and potentially damaging manipulator configurations.
Millman et al. (Fri,) studied this question.