Whole-arm manipulation : kinematics and control

Abstract

This thesis explores the kinematics and control issues associated with an approach to manipulation that employs all of the available surfaces of a robot to interact with the workspace. This thesis explores manipulations of this type which we term whole-arm manipulation (WAM). A classification of WAM tasks into pushing, searching, enclosure, and exclusion is presented and examples of each are given. A technique for describing the task kinematics and compliance in terms of compliant line motions is presented. Compliance control requirements are discussed in light of these task requirements. Implementation of the kinematic solutions and control for whole-arm tasks is described for the MIT-WAM robot. The inverse kinematic problem of placing the last link of the robot along a desired line is derived and the resulting transformations are applied to a maximum path deviation algorithm to plan manipulator motions. The endtip cartesian kinematics is derived and applied to the problem of sensin...