Casting manipulation (braking control for catching motion)

We have been developing a casting manipulator which includes flexible string in the link mechanism to enlarge the work space of the manipulator. In the casting manipulation, a gripper is thrown to its target by releasing the string at a suitable time after generating enough motion of the gripper by swinging. In the paper we deal with the midair motion control of the gripper after throwing it for catching a target. First, we point out the necessity of controlling the gripper in midair after throwing it. Then we propose the utilization of an impulsive force applied to the gripper in the air by restricting and releasing the motion of the string. Investigating the impulsive force generation through experiments, we proposed the plural braking control of the gripper and confirmed the effectiveness of the method by simulation results