Assembly of flexible objects without analytical models

The ability of manipulating flexible objects, such as rubber belts and paper sheets, is important in automated manufacturing systems. This paper describes a novel approach to assembly of flexible objects. The operation dealt with in this paper is to assemble a rubber belt with fixed pulleys. By analyzing possible states of the belt based on the empirical knowledge of the belt, one can derive a method to have not only the action planning but also the visual verification planning. The authors have implemented a belt assembly system using two manipulators and a laser range finder as the sensor, and succeeded in performing the belt-pulley assembly. Extension of the authors´ approach to other kinds of assembly of flexible objects is also discussed