Quasistatic Manipulation with Compliance and Sliding

We propose a method for modeling dextrous manipulation with sliding fingers. The approach combines compliance and friction limit surfaces. The method is useful for describing how a grasp will behave in the presence of external forces (e.g., when and how the fingertips will slide) and for planning how to control the fingers so that the grasped object will follow a desired trajectory. The sliding trajectories are characterized by a transient and steady-state solution. The underlying theory is first dis cussed and illustrated with several single-finger examples. Experimental results are also presented. The analysis is then extended to grasps with multiple sliding and nonslid ing fingers. The multifinger analysis is illustrated with an example of manipulating a card with two soft-contact fingers.