Heuristic grasp planning with three frictional contacts on two or three faces of a polyhedron

This paper presents a heuristic approach to the synthesis of force closure grasps of polyhedral objects using three contact points with friction. The approach is valid for sets of three faces as well as for sets of two faces (i.e. two contact points in the same object face). First, the sets of two and three object faces whose relative orientations and positions allow force closure grasps are determined. Second, these sets are evaluated with a quality function and the best one is selected for the grasp. Finally, the grasp contact points that generate a force closure grasp are determined on the selected set of faces. The method uses simple geometric reasoning on the projections of the faces on two orthogonal planes