BOKAM joystick applications
If you are talking remote control, digital control, fly by wire, or even remotely piloted the man machine interface is an essential part of industrial and defense technologies like UAV, ROV, and UGV. Whether the intended application is in the hospital, underwater, in the sky, underground in a mine, or on the battlefield, BOKAM offers the system designer a proven, cost effective, highly rugged and reliable control solution. BOKAM’s modular embedded strain gage joystick technology is found in control yokes, pedals, underwater mouse, game style controllers, trackballs and switches in use around the world in high end medical imaging equipment, submersible offshore maintenance equipment, unmanned aircraft and ground military vehicles and land warrior net centric infantry systems like the Future Combat System.
Unique joystick technology
Bokam’s joystick technology is based on their proprietary method of embedding strain sensitive materials directly into steel diaphragms using a multi axis design that features a co-planar, axis specific, strain sensitive bridge that is stable over time, temperature, and force application cycles.
Not needing moving or rubbing parts Bokam’s force proportional joysticks and similar devices offer a long life (10,000,000 cycles) and environmental robustness in the presence of salt water, other corrosive agents and extreme temperatures that would damage conventional input devices.
For applications where a position sensitive joystick is preferred over a force proportional joystick, by combining a multi-axis force sensor with a compliant input lever mechanism, Bokam’s engineers created a device that utilized the non-moving, non-rubbing sensing elements of the force proportional sticks with a moving input lever that simulated position proportionality in the stick.
Force proportional or position sensitive
Both the force proportional and the position sensitive joysticks can use the same signal processing hardware and software incorporated in the off the shelf modular Bokam controller to provide output in a variety of formats such as USB PS2, RS232, Analog, Can Bus and PWM. This modularity saves the designer development and qualification costs and allows the luxury of deferring the choice of going down the position sensitive or force proportional path.
For more information about Bokam’s joystick technology, contact us.