Design of Tactile Feedback Control of Flight Simulator

Nowadays, the use of virtual reality systems has increased, they are used in many fields like medical simulators and flight simulators. As, the sense of touch is important as it is involved in every physical interaction, every manipulating task, anything we do in the world. Tactile feedback mechanis

Project Title

Design of Tactile Feedback Control of Flight Simulator

Project Area of Specialization

Mechatronics Engineering

Project Summary

Nowadays, the use of virtual reality systems has increased, they are used in many fields like medical simulators and flight simulators. As, the sense of touch is important as it is involved in every physical interaction, every manipulating task, anything we do in the world. Tactile feedback mechanisms respond to touch, simulating a sensation of tapping. The response is accomplished using subtle and textured vibrations. Tactile feedback, however, does not interfere with the operation of the actual device. The tactile feedback is very important because if the user press anything or touches anything and if it doesn’t give any response then the user will not be able to know whether his command is being processed or not and such behaviour often causes multiple unnecessary operations. Our project is based on developing a virtual environment of flight simulator with tactile feedback so that it helps the pilot in training. In this project we will develop understanding of flight simulator and will work on an actuator that on response of sensor give the feeling of button and then we will interface the actuator with GUI. The need of our design is to provide a better understanding to the pilots traning through feedback in flight simulator.

Project Objectives

Objective 1: Making a GUI for hand, buttons and other objects.

Objective 2: Working on sensor that will detect the motion of hand, sense the objects. Working on actuator that on response of sensor give the feeling of button, a braking mechanism which will stop our hand from strongly grip the object that it may break.

Objective 3: Interfacing the GUI with the sensor, actuator.

Project Implementation Method

First we will develope a Graphical User Interface in Unity Editor for flight simulator window (any arbitrary plane interface), we will use blender to make models for dashboard (cockpit) and hand, then we will import the models in unity. In addiion, some sensors will be used to detect the movement of hand. After the hand movement is detected, flex sensor will be used to detect the movement of finger. After all the movement detections are done, actuators will be used to provide feedback of desired nature, then interfacing of hardware setup with the GUI is to be done.

Benefits of the Project

The project will be benefiting the following: 

Virtual Reality Systems:

Haptics has acquired great acceptance in virtual reality systems, adding the sense of touch to earlier visual-only interfaces, where the user can interact with the virtual world.

Simulators:

Simulators are widely used in flight simulators for pilot training & medical simulators. Force feedbacks are provided that would be felt in actual operation. It can also be used in medical simulators.

Mobile Devices:

Tactile Feedback is very common in mobile devices, mostly it is based on vibration response of touch.

Robotics:

As the haptics provide different types of feedbacks, they can be used to control the robot precisely.  

Technical Details of Final Deliverable

Unity:

Platform for virtual reality systems and used for game development. We will use this to control all the models by interfacing with hardware.

Blender:

Blender is used for 3D modelling. We will model the dashboard and a rigged hand.

Flex Sensor:

It is a sensor, that measures the amount of bending. We will use this to detect the bending motion of fingers.

MPU6050:

We will use this to detect the movement of hand. We will use a double average filter to smooth out the values of acceleration from the sensor, then we will use the equations of motion to get the displacement.

The final product will contain a haptic sensation glove, with a virtual interface. The glove will provide feedbacks for button, knob and toggle switches. Also we will pubblish a paper on the project.

Final Deliverable of the Project

HW/SW integrated system

Core Industry

Education

Other Industries

IT

Core Technology

Robotics

Other Technologies

Augmented & Virtual Reality

Sustainable Development Goals

Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure

Required Resources

If you need this project, please contact me on contact@adikhanofficial.com