Design And Development Of A 6-DOF Joystick With Force/Torque Sensing

This research presents the complete design of a joystick sensor that can detect force along the six axes and also provide force intensity.The objective is to exploit such a manufacturing technique that it is suitable as industrial product in future.For achieving our goal,firstly we find a cheap,market available 2-axes force sensor called the TrackPoint.After evaluating that its output is good reliable and precise enough for use in joystick,we go for the custom-made innovative mechanical hardware design.The mechanical design was made on SolidWorks software,and divided into many components.For checking the feasibility of design,simulation and FEA analysis were done performed on the same software.After that,3-D printing was used to fabricate it.Sensors i.e.TrackPoints were used in a framework for detection and determination of force and torque along 6-axes,hence the term 6-DOF.Subsequently,the parts were assembled together,both on software to check the feasibility,and then practically after printing them.The electronics components include the micro-controller to convert the raw output from sensors to a measurable integer number for force intensity,along with a wireless dongle for remote operation of joystick;they were installed in the lower housing of joystick.A novel method called “force mapping” was developed to determine output of joystick 6-axes by using a framework of 8 TrackPoint sensors.In the final step,some tests were performed to test the device.Incidentally,a customized GUI was programmed that displayed the output of the sensor as an arrow for force direction and a number for force intensity.The experimental results were in accordance with the theoretical results.On GUI,we were successful in displaying the force along three axes: up,down,left,right,forward,backward,and also the torque along three axes: yaw+,yaw-,pitch+,pitch-,roll+,roll-.We faced many problems and challenges in the way toward success.In fact,while testing the key mechanical component called “flexible hinge”,changing the design parameters was an important step,that led to a better output.As the latest progress in the project,we changed the 3D print material for the flexible hinge to a new one that makes it much more flexible than before,devised a better method of “force mapping” to get accurate output,and improved the GUI visualization.Hence,the final results are useful for determining the direction and intensity of externally applied force as well as torque.