The input is through a six degree of freedom master robot (the PerForce[TM] handcontroller manufactured by Cybernet Systems of Ann Arbor, MI) whose joints can be backdriven to apply forces at the user's head. The PerForceTM has been mechanically modified for control by the user's head movements.
The manipulation tasks in the environment are performed by a six degree of freedom slave robot (the Zebra- ZERO[TM] manufactured by IMI, Berkeley, CA) which has a force sensor at its wrist.
The motion of the head is picked up as encoder readings from the master robot's joints. The forward kinematics are used for finding the cartesian position, and then this information is appropriately modified and used for commanding the slave's motion. The forces picked up by the slave's force sensor are transmit ted to the master end where the data is transformed and applied as an appropriate set of forces on the user's head.
The necessary computations are per formed by two IBM PC-compatible computers which also handle bidirectional communication.