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From: klw11037@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: Data Glove Feedback
Message-ID: <138900001@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu>
Date: 18 Aug 90 03:39:00 GMT
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Approved: hitl@hardy.u.washington.edu


Some time back, there was a note discussing feedback in data gloves and
data suits. Along the line of data gloves, does anyone know of work being
done with electro-rheologic fluids as part of a feedback system? There has
been some interest in them for various mechanical systems of late, and they
might be useable to provide a controllable viscous damping form of feedback.

I fully admit that I know very little about electro-rheologics.

If that were possible, then combining that with a set of several nitinol wires
running down the front and back of the fingers with a critical temperature set
several degrees above body temp and acting as electrically controlled springs
would seem to be a way to simulate the resistance of various objects to being 
grasped. An array of several of the wires along each finger would allow a 
varied response to movement that could increase spring force as the deflection
of the finger increased, in the case of say a rubber ball, or, as in the case
of crushing a paper cup, increasing back pressure up to a yield point and then
partial release. Nitinol can generate a fair bit of force when returning to 
it's initial shape, and reacts quite quickly to temperature over it's critical
temperature, especially in a thin wire. The cool down time to go back below the
the critical temperature might be a problem, I don't know whether it would be 
fast enough.

Comments?

If I'm talking nonsense, then please let me know:-).


Kyle Webb