Control of Grasp and Manipulation by Soft Fingers with 3-Dimensional Deformation

Abstract

In this paper, we consider control of grasp and manipulation of an object in a 3-dimensional space by a 3-fingered hand robot with soft finger tips. We firstly propose a 3-dimensional deformation model of a hemispherical soft finger tip and verify its relevance by experimental data. Second, we consider the contact kinematics and derive the dynamical equations of the fingers and the object where the 3-dimensional deformation is considered. For the system, we thirdly propose a method to regulate the object and the internal force with the information of the hand, the object and the deformation. A simulation result is presented to show the effectiveness of the control method.