Automatic Generation of A High-level Contact State Graph for Assembly between Curved Objects

Information of high-level, topological contact states is useful for robotic assembly in the presence of uncertainty. All possible contact states in the process of an assembly operation due to uncertainty can be described in a contact state graph for assembly. This paper addresses how to represent concisely and generate automatically such a graph between general curved objects, which may include curved or planar surfaces. The approach has been implemented, and the implemented examples demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach.