Design of a stylus with variable tip compliance

Official URL: http://risc01.sabanciuniv.edu/record=b2102874 (Table of Contents)

Humans are known to modulate the impedance properties of their fingers in order to physically interact with the environment. For instance, painting or palpating fragile objects require high compliance of the fingers, while writing and measuring entails high precision position control, for which the stiffness of the fingers is increased considerably. In this thesis, we present the design, modeling, implementation, characterization and user verification of a stylus with variable tip compliance. In particular, we propose a variable stiffness mechanism as a compliant stylus that features an adjustable tip stiffness such that users can modulate compliance as needed to match the requirements of the task they perform. The variable stiffness of the stylus tip is achieved through transverse stiffness variations of axially loaded beams around their critical buckling load. Integrating an axially loaded beam with a compliant transmission mechanism, the stylus tip stiffness can be modulated over a large range. In particular, very low stiffness levels can be rendered with high fidelity, without sacrificing the mechanical integrity and load bearing capacity of the stylus. Compliant transmission mechanism of the stylus is analyzed through pseudo rigid body modeling which is a convenient and efficient way of modeling flexible elements exhibiting non-linear characteristics under large deflections. Furthermore, a novel pseudo rigid body model for a fixed-guided buckling beam that captures the iii transverse stiffness variations around the first critical buckling load is proposed and verified. These models are integrated to derive a lumped parameter model of the compliant stylus with adjustable tip stiffness. The lumped parameter model due to pseudo rigid body modeling promotes ease of analysis for design, by hiding the underlying modeling complexities of continuum mechanics from the designer. We provide experimental characterization results detailing the range of stiffness modulation achieved with several prototypes and verifying the accuracy of the equivalent pseudo rigid body model. We also present a set of human subject experiments that provide evidence in establishing the efficacy of the modulated stylus stiffness on the human performance.