Theoretical and experimental studies using a multifinger planar manipulator

An approach to manipulation tasks involving dextrous hands is presented. This approach treats the gripped object as a virtual finger and hence reduces the description of the task objectives to target forces and torques at reference points on the object. Computations are carried out for the case of three fingers holding a planar object. The authors implemented these ideas on the Four Finger Manipulator at New York University. Experimental results are presented for door opening and wall following with a gripped tool