Toward the First Force-Reflection Experiment on the International Space Station

This paper introduces the Haptics-1 ISS Payload and experiment, which has been developed by ESA’s Telerobotics & Haptics Laboratory.

Haptics-1 allows conducting a first extensive set of human factor measurements and measurements of variability of human motor-control capabilities of the upper extremity during extended exposure to microgravity. Haptics-1 consists of a high resolution force reflective Joystick with a single degree of freedom (a force manipulandum), a touch-screen tablet PC with the experiment interface software and all required periphery to conduct multiple experiment protocols with crew-in-the-loop.

Haptics-1 has a flexible software framework allowing software up-load and experiment parameter changes from ground. Moreover, Haptics-1 followed an agile development process, which allowed developing the experiment in less than 16 months from scratch, up to delivery to ATV-5 for launch to ISS in summer 2014. 

*Note:* Haptics-1 uses the Data Distribution Services (RTI DDS) for communication between the different components.