Integration of a force feedback joystick with a virtual reality system

The integration of force feedback with a complete real-lime virtual environment system shows some more difficult problems than those found in building a typical force feedback system. Particularly, bulky computations for graphics or simulation require decoupling die haptic servo-loop from the main application loop if high-quality forces (realistic) are to be obtained. As an approach to this problem, a control system is developed here for a force feedback joystick (Impulse 2000 -Immersion Corp.) along with its integration to a virtual environment. Technical issues on the development of stable control architectures for Internet-based exchange of haptic information are discussed. Some experiments were developed to show the performance of both the force feedback joystick and the virtual reality system.