Welcome to the Salisbury Research Group home page. Most of our group's work
focuses on the physical interaction between human beings and computer-driven
actuators. This includes both haptics and human-friendly robotics.
Haptics is roughly defined as using force-feedback to simulate
interaction with virtual objects. Haptics research in the Salisbury group
is geared toward simulating complex manual tasks for surgical simulation and
collaborative, networked environments. We experiment with several commercially
available haptic interfaces - primarily the PHANToM haptic device from
SensAble Technologies, Inc. and the Delta haptic device from
Force Dimension, Inc. -
in addition to developing our own haptic interface hardware.
The Human-Friendly Robot project aims to design safe, efficient mechanisms that
will allow robots to be placed in direct contact with human beings. Projects
are underway that explore all levels of human-friendly robotics, from
mechanism design to control to high-level interactions.