Space Mouse

Space Mouse

We describe the Haptic SpaceMouse, an input device based on the SpaceMouse with 2 DOF translational feedback in contrast to the rotational feedback often found in force-feedback joysticks. We use solenoids as motors in our implementation, they facilitate frictionless operation and add little inertia to the Spacemouse. The force-feedback controller is an Atmel ATmega32 microcontroller, which is programmed to decode the device output, thus enabling us to drive the solenoids in a closed loop.A simple host-to-device protocol is developed to specify the haptic forces. Our application-scenario demonstrates rigid-body contact of an user-controlled cursor.