Workspace generation of 2-D multifingered manipulation under consideration of all constraints in the grasp

The knowledge of the workspace of a robotic multifingered hand is crucial in order to plan grasp and dexterous manipulation, as in the cases of other robotic systems. In this paper, we propose a numerical approach to compute and visualize the workspace of a multifingered robotic hand manipulating an object in the planar case. Based on feasibility analysis of grasps, the proposed approach uses a numerical optimization technique to first compute discretely the boundary of the possible motion of the grasped object, and then the range of rotation at a specified position of the object within the position boundary. The ranges of the object position and rotation are finally depicted in a 3-D coordinate frame. Quite different from the cases of other robotic systems, grasp force and equilibrium are crucial in a hand-object system. Besides the geometric and kinematic factors, this essential characteristic is also taken into account in the generation of workspace of a hand-object system. The proposed approach is illustrated by an example. This approach provides an effective solution to the challenging problem of workspace analysis of multifingered manipulation.