Dexterous robot manipulation

Abstract

This thesis presents the development and preliminary analysis of a system capable of executing a small number of manipulation tasks in a completely autonomous fashion. Specifically it documents the implementation of two different paddle juggling behaviors on a three degree of freedom direct drive robot arm guided by a field rate (60 Hz) stereo vision system. The tasks consist of batting artificially illuminated ping-pong balls into specified periodic vertical motions. While these behaviors, the batting of one or two balls into stable vertical trajectories, are themselves only of academic interest, focussing on them has afforded significant progress towards understanding both how more complex behaviors might be designed and how simple dynamically dexterous behaviors can be combined to elicit more advanced behaviors.