Manipulation Planning under Changing External Forces

TL;DR

This paper introduces a manipulation planning algorithm enabling robots to maintain object stability under dynamic external forces, especially during human operations, by optimizing grasp changes and regrasp planning.

Contribution

It presents a novel planning algorithm that efficiently manages grasp switching and bimanual regrasping under changing external forces, improving robotic manipulation robustness.

Findings

Successful implementation on a bimanual robot.

Demonstrated ability to maintain object stability during external forces.

Reduced number of regrasps needed in manipulation tasks.

Abstract

In this work, we present a manipulation planning algorithm for a robot to keep an object stable under changing external forces. We particularly focus on the case where a human may be applying forceful operations, e.g. cutting or drilling, on an object that the robot is holding. The planner produces an efficient plan by intelligently deciding when the robot should change its grasp on the object as the human applies the forces. The planner also tries to choose subsequent grasps such that they will minimize the number of regrasps that will be required in the long-term. Furthermore, as it switches from one grasp to the other, the planner solves the problem of bimanual regrasp planning, where the object is not placed on a support surface, but instead it is held by a single gripper until the second gripper moves to a new position on the object. This requires the planner to also reason about the stability of the object under gravity.We provide an implementation on a bimanual robot and present experiments to show the performance of our planner.