ORCA™ Series Smart Linear Motors have five modes of operation: Sleep Mode, Force Mode, Position Mode, Haptic Mode, and Kinematic Mode. Today we will show you how to get started with Haptic Mode, which combines position, velocity, and force to model physical behaviours such as spring simulations, oscillations, damping, inertia, and more. Haptic Mode is useful across a wide range of applications, including medical training, simulating mechanical characteristics for testing and measurement, simulation, and robotics.
Haptic Mode is a layer of control on top of regular force control. It offers easy-to-understand built-in effects, including constant force, springs, damping, inertia, and oscillators. To enter Haptic Mode, select the Force / Haptics page in IrisControls. This page allows you to enable and configure the desired set of effects. Haptic Mode is fully controllable over serial connection, and since all control is handled locally within the motor, there is no external communication latency. This enables a very fast 3 kHz control loop, with response times typically under a millisecond.
Haptic Mode is ideal for applications that simulate real-world physical interactions such as springs, damping, inertia, or oscillations. It combines position, velocity, and force control to create responsive motion that mimics natural behaviours. This makes it well suited for mechanical testing, training simulators, and robotics. All effects are fully configurable, processed directly on the motor, and can even be layered to create unique and specialized profiles.
To enable a Haptic effect, click the Enable button next to the effect. Then, when you click Enable Haptics, the selected effects will become active. You can click Save Configuration to store your selected effects and settings in permanent memory.
Just like it sounds, this effect outputs a constant force. You can input a desired force in millinewtons in either a positive or negative direction. A filter strength parameter is also provided to smooth new inputs. When using Haptic Mode over Modbus, increasing the filter strength can help reduce abrupt movements by smoothing out large changes in input.
The spring function enables the motor’s shaft to simulate a spring effect. This function has multiple tunable parameters in IrisControls. Gain allows you to tune how many newtons the motor will output per millimetre of displacement from its centre. The centre of the spring is also programmable. The dead zone is a range around the centre where the spring will not take effect. Saturation, measured in newtons, is the maximum amount of force the spring can output. For example, setting it to 100 N programs the motor to stop increasing its force beyond 100 N. If set to 0, there is no limit. Coupling dictates the axes in which the spring will function. Positive and negative allows it to spring in both directions, whereas negative only or positive only restrict the spring action to their respective direction.
The damper function outputs force that is negatively proportional to the speed of the shaft. This means the harder the motor is pushed, the more it will resist. The damper strength can be tuned by adjusting the gain.
Inertia acts on the acceleration of the shaft, making it feel heavier depending on the gain set by the user. This provides greater control over the shaft’s movement and resistance.
The oscillators output force waveforms. Amplitude is the peak force of the waves, and frequency is the rate at which they oscillate. Oscillations can operate using sine, sawtooth, triangle, and pulse waveforms. For pulse waveforms, the duty cycle is configurable. The duty cycle defines how often the signal remains high during each period of the waveform.
“Using the ORCA-6-LITE linear motor has been instrumental in our research to combat coastal erosion within Texas’ ecosystem. The motor's seamless integration and intuitive design have streamlined our experiments, freeing up valuable time to focus directly on advancing our project rather than grappling with motor integration complexities.”
- Ayush Kumar | Graduate Research Student