Fast computation of 4-fingered force-closure grasps from surface points

This paper addresses the problem of computing frictional 4-fingered force-closure grasps of three-dimensional objects. The proposed approach searches for force-closure grasps from a collection of sampled points on the object´s surface. Unlike most other works, the approach is not limited to the objects with a certain class of shapes. It can be applied to an object in any shape since only the object´s surface points and corresponding surface normal at the points are needed. The efficiency of the approach arises from a heuristic for search space pruning which is based on ability to efficiently locate regions in three dimensional space where friction cones intersect and a randomized test for checking force-closure condition. The proposed approach is implemented and preliminary results are presented.