Quasistatic sliding manipulation - On the transient response of sliding manipulation

Analytic models and numerical simulations of transient sliding are presented. The sliding motion of compliant grasps is governed by a first-order time-varying differential equation. The solution of such differential equations is characterized by a steady-state and a transient solution. The transient solution is more important because it happens immediately after the sliding motion initiates so that it is necessary to control it more carefully, and the fingertips are usually in transient stages with little opportunity to establish steady-state sliding. Under most circumstances, the approximate solutions of the time-varying system were found to be close to those of direct numerical computation. Several experiments on the sliding motions of fingers were conducted using a model frame and disk that represent the fingertip. The experiments gave good qualitative and quantitative agreement with the theoretical and numerical solutions.