Initial grasping strategy for an unknown object by cooperative mobile robots

Abstract

We aim at handling an unknown object by cooperating multiple mobile robots. The most important problem in this paper is obtaining a weight and mass center position of an object. Another important problem is to determine appropriate grasping points before handling. This method is proposed to avoid bad situations, such as making an object fall down, or some robots overloaded in handling. The algorithm we propose in this paper is a first step of grasping objects, which is "determination of initial grasping points". Initial grasping points are given by only a geometrical shape of an object. The robots are placed where the possibility that robots can lift the object with no trouble. This evaluation is based on the normal distribution model proposed in this paper. We are also going to discuss how to avoid and regrasp when initial grasping has failed. We show a simple numerical example of initial grasping and re-grasping, in planar object model.