Stable pinching by controlling finger relative orientation of robotic fingers with rolling soft tips

SUMMARY There is a large gap between reality and grasp models that are currently available because of the static analysis that characterizes these approaches. This work attempts to fill this need by proposing a control law that, starting from an initial contact state which does not necessarily correspond to an equilibrium, achieves dynamically a stable grasp and a relative finger orientation in the case of pinching an object with arbitrary shape via rolling soft fingertips. Controlling relative finger orientation may improve grasping force manipulability and allow the appropriate shaping of the composite object consisted of the distal links and the object, for facilitating subsequent tasks. The proposed controller utilizes only finger proprioceptive measurements and is not based on the system model. Simulation and experimental results demonstrate the performance of the proposed controller with objects of different shapes.