A Survey of General- Purpose Manipulation

A general-purpose manipulator, in conjunction with other sensory modalities, can be used to measure the three-dimen sional character of the environment, support object recogni tion and localization procedures, and perform alternately as a delicate and powerful manipulator. This paper surveys the technologies which support general-purpose manipulation. While machines are capable of outperforming the human hand in specific applications, there is no machine capable of addressing the variety of tasks accomplished by our hands. We begin, therefore, by discussing the human hand. Some of the "bioware" supporting manipulation and haptics in humans is described. The development of hardware to sup port general-purpose manipulation is progressing rapidly. We focus on tactile sensing techniques and their role in percep tion. A variety of mechanical manipulators used in research and the methods employed to control them are presented. Finally, we discuss properties of the task, the manipulator, and the object which constrain the selection of manipulation strategies.