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Impulsive resistance force generated using
pulsive damping brake of DC motor
Takumu Okada, Shogo Okamoto, and Yoji Yamada
Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering, Nagoya University, Japan
Abstract—We developed a method to present an impulsive
resistance force by using the passive damping brake of a
DC motor. The rapid pulsive change in the resistance forces
preceding the main brake increased the perceived resistance ofthe brake. In a ranking task involving five naive participants,
a damping brake with two preceding pulsive resistances wasreported to deliver a resistance larger than that due to a simple
stepwise brake that achieves the maximum physical braking
force. This finding indicates that perceptually effective impulsive
resistances are different from the physically optimal resistance.
Our technique enhances the abilities of passive force displays,
which are inherently safe human-machine interfaces.

I. I NTRODUCTION
Passive haptic interfaces, which take advantage of mechanically or electrically passive elements to present haptic stimuli,
are beneficial for industrial and entertainment applications
because of their inherent safety and energy efficiency. Several
researchers have employed passive haptic interfaces for force
and tactile texture displays [1], [2], [3], [4] and humanmachine coexistence systems [5]. The origin of such passiveinterfaces can be seen in passive robotics [6]. The present
study deals with impulsive resistance forces generated using
only a passive damping brake. Representation of impulsive
resistance forces to the users of teleoperation robots or virtual
reality systems allows them to feel the hard contact with virtual
objects. For delivering a sense of hard contact, providing alarge momentum with the hand of the maneuverer in a shortperiod is effective [7]. However, passive force displays canonly deprive the maneuverer of momentum. Therefore, for apassive interface, it is believed that braking with the maximum
resistance is the best method to present a large resistance.
The objective of this study is to present a large impulsive
resistance force by using the passive damping brake of a
DC motor. We aimed at a resistive force pattern that induces
a greater resistance than that perceived by the physicallymaximum damping torque of the DC motor. Regarding theloss of momentum of the moving hand of the maneuverer,
the maximum physical resistance force is achieved by thecontinuous function of the damping brake. This continuous
brake at the maximum braking force is also believed to beperceptually most effective to evoke the sense of impulsive
resistive force. In contrast, we experimentally confirmed thatthe pulsive resistance force caused by rapidly switching thedamping brake on and off can evoke an even larger resistanceperception. To the knowledge of the authors, thus far, few

978-1-5090-1897-0/16/$31.00 ©2016 IEEE

R

L

M
ComputercontrolledswitchFig. 1.

Computer-controlled short circuit of the DC motor.

researchers have reported such a perceptual effect or method
for presenting large impulsive resistances by using only passive force control elements. Furthermore, we investigated theperceptual characteristics of the impulsive resistance forcesin order to find a way to optimize the brake-force profiles.
Such a technique for impulsive resistances using passive haptic
interfaces will benefit the teleoperation robotics and gaming
industry, in which safe and stable force displays are preferred.
II. P RINCIPLE
A. Short-circuit-brake of DC motor
We employed the damping brake of a DC motor as a passive
factor. This brake functions by shortening the motor circuitand using the back electromotive force of the motor. Figure 1
shows a schematic of a short circuit in which R and L are theresistance and inductance of the circuit, respectively. When
the DC motor rotates at an angular velocity of ω(t), on thebasis of Kirchhoff’s law, the brake torque τ (t) is determined
as follows:
L dτ (t)K2+ τ (t) = −
ω(t),
(1)
R dt
R
where K is the torque constant of the motor. Given that theinductance L is negligible, the brake torque τ (t) is proportional to the angular velocity ω(t), indicating that the braking
force corresponds to the viscous resistance. Such a brake of a
DC motor has been used for haptic interfaces to control their
passivity or impedance [3], [8].
B. Damping brakes for impulsive resistance1) Physically maximum impulse: We consider a case wherea moving human hand hits a wall of large mass as shown in
Fig. 2. The integral value of the impulsive force caused by
the hit is related to the difference of the momentum of thehand before and after the impact. Provided that the mass ofthe hand is constant, the impulse is determined by the hand

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000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000
000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000

Impulsive force f(t)

v(-0)
v(+0)

Imp. force

Hand velocity
v(-0)
v(+0)

Velocity

2016 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics • SMC 2016 | October 9-12, 2016 • Budapest, Hungary

00 Time

v(t)

On

On

Off

Off

Brake

Velocity:v(t)Fig. 2. Impact by hitting a wall. Change in hand velocity and associatedimpulsive force.

0 Time0Time

Pulsive brake

Stepwise brake(physically maximum
impulse)Hypothesis
Impulsive resistanceperceived by
stepwise brake

Impulsive resistanceperceived bypulsive brake

Fig. 3. Two types of impulsive resistances. Left: Change of velocity by a
stepwise brake. Right: Change of velocity by a pulsive brake. We hypothesizethat the impulsive resistance perceived by the right pulsive brake is greaterthan that perceived by the left stepwise brake.

velocity. The impulsive force f (t) at contact is denoted by∫ +0
m(v(+0) − v(−0)) =f (t)dt(2)−0where v(t) and m are the hand velocity and mass, respectively.
The moment of contact is t = 0. As previously mentioned,from this viewpoint, when the change in velocity before andafter the impact becomes maximum, the perceived impulsive
force is also maximum. The damping brake that achieves thisbehavior best is{oﬀ t < 0
braking =(3)
on t ≥ 0.
Passive force displays achieve the most rapid changes of force
outputs and velocity by abruptly exerting the maximum brakeforce where no force is output. From this viewpoint, braking
with the maximum damping force seems to be the best methodfor delivering the largest impulsive resistance.
2) Hypothesis about impulse perception and pulsive damping brake: To improve the quality of the force outputs ofhaptic interfaces with limited maximum force outputs, the ratesof the exerted force are occasionally more important than theFig. 4. Top: Passive haptic interface using the damping brake of the DC
motor. Bottom: Task to evaluate impulsive resistance forces.

available maximum force. Lawrence et al. [9] demonstrated
that it is effective to increase the rate of the force output inorder to present the hardness experienced by hitting virtual
objects. This indicates that the change in the hand motion orforce during a certain short period (∆t) has to be considered
explicitly, although in the preceding section the impact was
physically modeled as an instantaneous event that occurs overa very short duration: ∆t → 0.
We hypothesize that a greater integral value of the absolutechange of the momentum in a short period yields a greater
perceived resistance. The momentum does not necessarily continuously decrease. Hence, under this hypothesis, the perceived
impulse is proportional to∫ ∆tPerceived impulse ∝ m|v̇(t)|dt.
(4)0

We switch the brake of the haptic interface on and off,
resulting in a large absolute change of the momentum or handvelocity. As shown in Fig. 3, a larger impulsive force may beperceived by an on-and-off brake (right) than by the physicallymaximum stepwise brake (left). We experimentally validate
this hypothesis about human impulsive force perception.
III. E XPERIMENTAL APPARATUS
Figure 4 shows the passive haptic interface based on thedamping brake of a DC motor. This device presented the brakeforce by switching only the short circuit of the DC motor (RE40, Maxon motor, reduction ratio: 12, inductance: 0.025 mH,
torque constant: 16.4 mNm/A). The circuit was controlled bya microcomputer at 10 kHz. The output shaft of the motor
was connected to an aluminum arm 120 mm in length with ahandle. The rotation angle of the motor was recorded by anencoder mounted on the motor.

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2016 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics • SMC 2016 | October 9-12, 2016 • Budapest, Hungary(a) Step
100

Force [N]Brake

ON/OFF
ON

OFF

5

ON

OFF

ON

OFF

Start of brake torque

0

1
0
0

Time [ms]100Time [ms]Control (on and off) of the brake force
Fig. 5.

1

3 3

Force [N]Brake(c) 2-pulse

05Force [N]Brake(b) 1-pulse

1

Brake force at the handThree types of braking stimuli. Left: On-off operations of brake torque. Right: Examples of braking forces estimated on the basis of the current.

IV. I MPULSIVE RESISTANCE STIMULI
We investigate whether it is possible to present a perceived
resistance larger than that of the stepwise brake. We presented
each of the three types of braking forces to experimental
participants when they were rotating the arm of the device.
The three types of braking forces were stepwise, one-pulse,
and two-pulse stimuli. Figure 5 shows the braking operations
for each type of stimulus. The stepwise brake was operated at
the maximum brake force for 100 ms, which was short andfelt like an impact caused by a collision with an object. For
the one-pulse stimulus, a pulsive brake of 5 ms preceded themain brake of 90 ms with a 5 ms interval. For the two-pulse
stimulus, two pulsive brakes, each lasting 3 ms with an intervalof 3 ms, preceded the main brake of 88 ms. The three typesof stimuli lasted 100 ms in total.
We regulated the widths and the intervals of the pulses on a
trial-and-error basis such that we could perceive the stimuli as
realistic impacts. We used one- and two-pulse stimuli, althoughstimuli with more than three pulses are also possible. A greaternumber of pulses yields a longer period of continuous pulsive
stimuli that are felt as obvious vibrations and deteriorate
the realism of the stimuli. Hence, we limited the numberof pulses to two; however, these stimuli were experimentally
determined, and better stimuli should exist.
V. E XPERIMENTThis study was approved by the internal review board of
School of Engineering, Nagoya University (#15-12).
A. Participants
The participants were five volunteer students unaware of theobjectives of the experiments. All of them declared that theyused their right hand for writing.
B. Tasks
The participants, whose auditory cues were shutout by
headphones playing a pink noise, sat on a chair in front of
the device and rotated the arm of the motor with their righthand, as shown in Fig. 4. The braking stimulus was initiatedat an angle of π/2 rad. After experiencing the stimulus, they
were allowed to return the arm to the original position (0rad) and to experience the stimulus repeatedly. They were
not instructed on the number of times to test the stimulus,
but they typically experienced each stimulus five to ten times.
Furthermore, regarding the rotation speed of the handle, they
were instructed to use a comfortable speed but not to rotate
the arm very fast or slow. The average angular velocities of thehandle immediately before the commencement of the stimuli
were in the range 5.0-5.9 rad/s for all the participants, andthere was no significant difference in the handle speed among
the stimuli.
Although the participants were told that there were three
types of stimuli, they were not informed of their differences.
During the experiment, the participants could freely switch
the three types of stimuli by using a keyboard. The correspondence between the keys and stimuli was randomized foreach participant.
1) Ranking task: The participants ranked the three typesof stimuli on the basis of the magnitude of the perceived
resistance forces in a forced-choice manner. They were notallowed to rank more than two types of stimuli the same. They
conducted the same task after a break of several minutes, sothat we could check the consistency of their answers. Nonetheless, no participant ranked the stimuli differently between their

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2016 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics • SMC 2016 | October 9-12, 2016 • Budapest, Hungary

TABLE IR ESULTS OF RANKING TASK

Participants
A
B
C
D
E

Step
2
2
3
2
3

Ranking
One-pulse
3
3
2
3
2

Two-pulse
1
1
1
1
1

first and second trials.
2) Drawing task: In a preliminary investigation, the people
who experienced the stimuli agreed that the resistance force
presented by the device was similar to that perceived bycontacting and overcoming an obstacle on a plane. Therefore,
we asked the participants to draw the profiles of the obstacles associated with each stimulus on a graph paper. They
were required to consider the sizes of the obstacles drawn.
We expected analyzing the drawings would help us identify
the physical factors influencing the perception of impulsive
resistance force.
C. Experimental results
1) Results of the ranking task: Table 1 presents the resultsof the ranking task. All the participants reported that the twopulse stimulus delivered the largest resistance. Following thetwo-pulse stimulus, the one-pulse and stepwise stimuli wereselected by two and three participants, respectively. The ranksof the three types of stimuli differed significantly (S0 = 30.8,
p < 0.05, Friedman test). In a post-hoc test, we compared
all the possible pairs of stimuli by using Wilcoxon’s rank sum
tests. Differences at a significance level of 0.05 were observed
between the stepwise and two-pulse stimuli and between the
one-pulse and two-pulse stimuli. These results indicate that thetwo-pulse stimulus was perceived as a larger resistance thanthe other two types of stimuli.
2) Results of drawing task: Figure 6 shows the profilesof perceived obstacles drawn by the participants. All theparticipants drew bumpy objects. Participants A, B, and E
differentiated the height of the obstacles. For the obstacles
drawn by participants A and B, the two-pulse stimulus was
the tallest, followed by the stepwise and one-pulse stimuli.
Participant E drew the two-pulse stimulus as the tallest andthe other two stimuli as equally tall. In contrast, participants
C and D differentiated the width of the obstacles, recognizing
the one-pulse and stepwise stimuli, respectively, as having
smaller widths than the other stimuli. Participants A, C, andD recognized differences in the profiles of the obstacles.
Participants C and D expressed the stimuli with pulses asobjects with rugged surfaces.
VI. D ISCUSSION
In the experiments, a brake stimulus with two preceding
pulse stimuli induced the perception of a greater impulsive

resistance. Thus far, few researchers have pointed out that such
pulsive damping brakes are perceptually more effective than
the stepwise operation for the physically maximum damping
brake. The experimental results corroborate our hypothesis on
the perception of impulsive resistance forces, which is thatthe integral value of the absolute velocity change during ashort period at the event of impact influences the perceived
magnitude of the impulse. Nonetheless, further validation isneeded to reach a conclusion. Note that it is unclear that theperceptual effects of the pulse stimuli were attributed to theincrease in the absolute velocity change in a short period.
Our hypothetical principle may be related to an increasein the perceived hardness via additional vibratory cutaneous
stimuli, though our method is for the impulsive force caused byhitting a hard object. By adding vibratory cueing to the force
output of the haptic interface at the event of dynamic contacts
such as tapping, the perceived hardness of a virtual object
increases [10], [11]. The method employed by these earlier
studies and our method are similar in that they increase theperceived hardness or impact by using additional stimuli that
do not physically increase the impedance or maximum output
forces of the haptic interfaces. However, such vibratory stimuli
to the cutaneous channel do not influence the momentum of
the hand of the maneuverer. On the other hand, our approach
intends to directly manipulate the momentum to represent theimpulsive resistance force. Hence, these earlier studies and ourpresent study may underlie different perceptual principles.
One of the next research steps is to specify a brake patternthat leads to the greatest perception of impulsive resistanceusing a damping brake. However, one concern is the individuality of perception. On the basis of the results of the drawing
task, the effect of the pulse stimuli on the perception may havevaried among individuals. For some participants, the pulsive
stimuli yielded a perception of higher or wider obstacles. For
other participants, the pulsive stimuli influenced the profilesof the obstacles. In the future, additional studies involving alarge group of participants may make the results of the drawing
task more conclusive. Moreover, investigating the relationships
between the characteristics of the perceived obstacles and theparameters of braking stimuli, such as the number of pulses,
the width, and the interval may provide us with guidelines fordesigning optimal resistance forces.
VII. C ONCLUSION
This study addressed the perception of a large impulsive
resistance by using a passive haptic interface with the damping
brake of a DC motor. We compared three types of braking
stimuli. One was a stepwise brake that exerted a physicallymaximum brake torque. The other two involved pulsive brakeforces before the main brake. Each stimulus included one andtwo short transient brakes. The perceived resistance forces
resembled those experienced when contacting and overcoming
an obstacle. When ranking these three types of brakes, study
participants judged the two-pulse-typed brake as the largest
resistance. This study is the first report that there exists a

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2016 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics • SMC 2016 | October 9-12, 2016 • Budapest, Hungary

Fig. 6.

Drawings of imaginary obstacles perceived by participants.

damping brake operation that yields a greater sense of impulsive resistance force than the physically maximum damping
brake. Our finding about the human perceptual characteristics
for impulsive resistance will further exploit passive haptic
interfaces which are compatible with many industrial applications because of their inherent safety.

[11] Y. Ikeda and S. Hasegawa, “Characteristics of perception of stiffness
by varied tapping velocity and penetration in using event-based haptic,”
Proceedings of 15th Joint Virtual Reality Eurographics Conference on
Virtual Environments, pp. 113–116, 2009.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This study was partly supported by ImPACT (Tough
Robotics Challenge) and MEXT Kakenhi (15H05923).
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