Catching Continuum Between Preshape and Grasping Based on Fluidics Available to Purchase

We propose a new fluidics based methodology to determine a continuum between preshaping and grasping so as to appropriately preshape a multifingered robot hand for creating an optimal initialization of grasp, with minimum energy loss towards task execution, upon landing on an object. In this paper, we investigate the effects of impact forces and momentum transfer between different hand preshapes landing on an object. Momentum transfer parameters lead to modification of object orientation and position at the very initial stage of task after that preshaped fingers land on the object. We model fingers as particles in a solidified environment while the medium squeezed by hand preshape that is closing upon an object, is modeled as a compressible fluid where momentum is propagated until hitting the surface of the solidified particle medium of the object. Smoothed particle hydrodynamics model (SPH) is used to simulate the general dynamic of fluid flows and momentum transfer between particles of different media. The fingers of the robotic hand are modeled by solidified fluid particles interacting with compressible surrounding fluids in which objects are defined as rigid-body solidified fluid particles. The developed model has been applied, in this paper, to the simulation of various simple robot hand preshaping and the generated momentum transfer profiles an object surface have been analyzed.