A Bimanual Manipulation Taxonomy

Abstract

The ability of humans to bimanually manipulate objects is unprecedented and has not been matched by robots yet. The goal-oriented coordination requires the consideration of both temporal and spatial constraints between the hands. Within this work, we propose a taxonomy which differentiates between the different coordination patterns observed in human bimanual manipulation. The taxonomy rests on the key aspects of coordination and interaction of the hands, hand roles and symmetry in the execution of bimanual tasks. To validate the taxonomy, we propose a contact- and graph-based representation of the task, which combined with a rule-based classification provides the category of bimanual actions.