Measuring a Robot Hand's Graspable Region using Power and Precision Grasps

TL;DR

This paper introduces a standardized, practical method for measuring a robot hand’s graspable volume based on power and precision grasps, aiding in hand selection and object size estimation.

Contribution

It proposes a functional measurement standard applicable to various robot hand designs, enabling consistent comparison and assessment of grasping capabilities.

Findings

The measurement standard works across different robot hand designs.

It effectively predicts graspability of objects from the YCB dataset.

The method facilitates better robot hand selection for specific tasks.

Abstract

The variety of robotic hand designs and actuation schemes makes it difficult to measure a hand's graspable volume. For end-users, this lack of standardized measurements makes it challenging to determine a priori if a robot hand is the right size for grasping an object. We propose a practical hand measurement standard, based on precision and power grasps, that is applicable to a wide variety of robot hand designs. The resulting measurements can be used to both determine if an object will fit in the hand and characterize the size of an object with respect to the hand. Our measurement procedure uses a functional approach, based on grasping a hypothetical cylinder, that allows the measurer choose the exact hand orientation and finger configurations that are used for the measurements. This ensures that the measurements are functionally comparable while relying on the human to determine the finger configurations that best match the intended grasp. We demonstrate using our measurement standard with three commercial robot hand designs and objects from the YCB data set.