Novint - Novint Falcon

Novint's flagship consumer product is the Novint Falcon, a USB haptic device intended to replace the mouse in video games and other applications. The name of the Novint Falcon comes from the fact that the falcon is a predator of the mouse. The Falcon has removable handles, or grips, that the user holds onto to control the Falcon. As the user moves the grip in three dimensions (right-left and forwards-backwards, like a mouse, but also up-down, unlike a mouse), the Falcon's software keeps track of where the grip is moved and creates forces that a user can feel, by sending currents to the motors in the device. The Falcon's sensors can keep track of the handle's position to sub-millimeter resolution, and the motors are updated 1000 times per second (1 kHz), giving a realistic sense of touch. The surfaces of virtual objects feel solid, and can have detailed textures applied to them. The weight and dynamics of objects can be simulated so that an object's inertia and momentum can be felt. The actions and interactions of a character in a game can be felt, such as the feel of a recoil of a gun, the motion of a golf club, or the accelerations of a car.

The Falcon in essence is a consumer robot. It consists of its grip connected via three arms to a roughly conical body, which sits on a U-shaped base. Each of the three arms moves in and out of the Falcon's body. The default grip is a small spherical grip with 4 buttons on the top. The buttons are the Novint Logo for the primary button (which is similar to an 'N'), an upside down triangle (similar to a 'V'), a lightning bolt (similar to an 'N'), and a plus (similar to a 'T'), which collectively make the letters 'NVNT', the consonants in Novint's name and its ticker symbol as a public company. At the front flattened point of the Falcon's conical housing is a Novint Falcon logo that lights up in different colors to indicate the state of the device. The body contains 3 motors, each attached to one of the Falcon's arms by a cable that is wrapped around a capstan on the motor. As each of the 3 arms moves, an optical sensor attached to each motor keeps track of the movements of the arm. A mathematical function called a Jacobian is then used to determine the position of a three-dimensional cursor in Cartesian coordinates based on the positions of the arms. The position of that haptic cursor is therefore controlled by the Falcon's movements, and is used by the Falcon's software to determine the forces to be applied to the user. Currents are sent to the motors at the 1 kHz servo rate to present the user with an accurate sense of touch. In this way, a force can be applied to the grip in any direction, up to the maximum force (over 2 pounds of force), every 1/1000 of a second.

Novint has developed several grip accessories. On the consumer side, Novint developed a pistol grip, which is the shape of a pistol handle and attaches to the Falcon in place of the spherical grip. It has a main trigger button, and 3 side buttons. It was intended for use in First Person Shooter (FPS) games, but is generally an ergonomic grip that can be used for many applications. Novint has also developed several professional grips, including a 3 Degree of Freedom (3 DOF) grip that tracks rotations of the handle, two of which Degrees of Freedom are actuated and can present forces to the user.