A Haptic Bilateral System for the Remote Human–Human Handshake

Abstract

The objective of this work is to develop a hardware and software system that allows two people to shake hands while being in different locations. To this end, a novel haptic interface that is capable of performing a robotic handshake was designed and built. In this paper, the communication system composed of two such interfaces is presented. The working principle of the haptic interface is first recalled. The attention is then focused on the development and the implementation of a control algorithm that allows bilateral interaction between the two users. Finally, the transparency of the system is qualitatively validated in terms of the exchanged forces and of the positions of the interfaces, through some preliminary experiments.