A study of casting manipulation (swing motion control and planning of throwing motion)

Abstract

We propose a new type of manipulator, a casting manipulator, which includes flexible parts, such as a string, in the link mechanism. A gripper is attached at the end of the string. In order to let the gripper reach a target, the rigid link is swung until the necessary motion of the gripper is generated. The gripper is then thrown to the target by releasing the string at the suitable time. In this paper we describe the manipulation of a casting manipulator. We present a method of oscillating a casting manipulator by considering it as a two-degrees-of-freedom nonholonomic system. First, we propose a method to swing the manipulator for casting motion, and then discuss the selection of swing motion and decision of the timing for releasing the string.