Abstract: The anthropomorphic force-reflective master arm is a light, anthropomorphic, back-drivable, six degree of freedom (DOF) master arm designed to control the motion of a remote slave device having arbitrary structure. Three of the link members are rotationally coupled to each other to form a handle, such that axes of rotation of each of the handle link members intersects at the user's hand position. The kinematics of the master arm is simplified to two independent sub-systems, which are the hand position and hand orientation.

Abstract: The anthropomorphic force-reflective master arm is a light, anthropomorphic, back-drivable, six degree of freedom (DOF) master arm designed to control the motion of a remote slave device having arbitrary structure. Three of the link members are rotationally coupled to each other to form a handle, such that axes of rotation of each of the handle link members intersects at the user's hand position. The kinematics of the master arm is simplified to two independent sub-systems, which are the hand position and hand orientation.

Abstract: The anthropomorphic force-reflective master arm controls a remote robotic arm and includes a plurality of rotatably joined mechanical links extending from a base to provide up to six degrees of freedom. Three of the link members are rotatably coupled to each other to form a handle, so that axes of rotation of each of the handle link members intersect at a user's hand position. Cable and pulley assemblies for the link joints are connected to their corresponding backdrive motors, the backdrive motors being disposed on the base to provide efficient transmission of forces experienced by the remote machine to the master arm handle.

Abstract: A measured-force gripper device of articulated structure having several degrees of freedom and interposed between the contact plate and its support, the device comprising two fingers which can be displaced to grasp an article to be handled, each finger being formed by a support, a contact plate which contacts the article to be handled, an articulated structure, which has several degrees of freedom and is interposed between the contact plate and the support, and a displacement-measuring pickup associated with each of the degrees of freedom of each finger, the pickup delivering information related exclusively to the movements carried out in accordance with that degree of freedom.

Abstract: A control system having the structure of a loop controls the shaft angular position of a motor driving a load in the situation wherein the inertia of the load, as referred back to the rotational axis of the motor, is variable. The system includes a computer providing values of gain, damping, and inertia which are used as multiplicative factors in processing a loop error signal. The error signal is the difference between a desired motor shaft position and the actual shaft position. Parallel multiplying branches, one of which includes a derivative circuit, are utilized for forming products of error signal and the derivative thereof by the gain and damping factors provided by the computer. The products are summed and provided as a drive signal to the motor. The drive signal may also include a second derivative of the desired shaft position, and may be scaled by the computed inertia.