Study of dexterous robotic grasping for deformable objects manipulation

Abstract

Most works in dexterous manipulation consider Force Closure Grasp (FCG), not only for rigid object but also, for flexible ones, though in the second case a force readjustment is also necessary. However, there are situations in which FCG is nonviable. This paper deals with the situation of a flexible object that must be necessarily grasped from one of its sides, taking advantage of its flexibility. This situation is common in packaging processes, or other everyday situations carried out by people. The paper presents first a new solution based on a planner that reproduces the actions of a human hand, aided by a database with knowledge about previous tasks. The paper is focused on describing the first tests done to evaluate the effectiveness of the planner for grasping different basic flexible objects, compared to a human hand.