Interaction modeling in the grasping and manipulation of 3D deformable objects

Robotic grasping has been extensively studied in the last two decades. Most of the research in this field has been dedicated to rigid body grasping, and only a few studies have considered the case of deformable objects. Nevertheless, the robotized grasping of deformable objects has many potential applications in various areas, including bio-medical processing, the food processing industry, service robotics, robotized surgery, etc. This paper discusses the problem of modeling interactions between a multi-fingered hand and a 3D deformable object for robotic grasping and manipulation tasks. Our work presents a new strategy for modeling contact interactions in order to define the relationship between applied forces and object deformations. The mechanical behavior of the deformable object is modeled using a non-linear anisotropic mass-spring system. Contact forces are generated according to the relative positions and velocities between the fingertips and the boundary surface facets of the deformable object mesh. This approach allows reducing the number of nodes while ensuring accurate contact modeling.