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Foundations of Robotics Seminar, November 12, 2010
Time
and Place | Seminar Abstract
Grasp Invariance
Alberto Rodriguez
Robotics Institute
CMU
GHC 6501
Talk 10:00 am
What principles should guide the design of finger form? It depends on
context---the specific application, the hand design philosophy, and in
particular on the function assigned to the fingers. In this talk we
describe ongoing work in exploring the possible role of the fingers in
adapting to variations in object shape and pose. One common design
approach is to adapt to object shape and pose by control of several
actuators per finger. But for simpler hands, with one actuator per
finger, or even one actuator driving several fingers, the job of
gracefully adapting to shape and pose variations may fall on the
finger form. In this work we explore grasp invariance over shape
and/or pose variation as a principle for finger form design.
We show how, under certain conditions, the problem can be
mathematically formulated and admits a unique solution as an integral
curve of a vector field. Under specific circumstances, the principle
gives rise to spiral shaped fingers, including logarithmic spirals and
straight lines as special cases. We apply the technique to derive
scale-invariant and pose-invariant fingers to grasp disks, and we also
explore the principle's application to derive optimal shapes for many
common devices from jar wrenches to rock-climbing cams.
The Robotics Institute is part of the School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University.