On planning immobilizing grasps for a reconfigurable gripper

We propose a reconfigurable gripper that consists of two parallel plates whose distance can be adjusted by a computer-controlled actuator. The bottom plate is a bare plane, and the top plate carries a rectangular grid of actuated pins that can translate in discrete increments under computer control. We propose to use this gripper to immobilize objects through frictionless contacts with three of the pins and the bottom plate. We present an efficient grasp planning algorithm, describe the design of the gripper, which is currently under construction, and report preliminary simulation experiments