Issues in dextrous robot hands

In this chapter, we study grasp planning and coordinated manipulation by a multifingered robot hand under various contact constraints. First, we formulate the hand kinematics and establish force/velocity transformation relations for a hand manipulation system. Then, we propose two quality measures for evaluating a grasp. These measures can be used to plan for good grasps. Finally, we derive a set of control laws for coordinated manipulation by a robot hand under either fixed points of contact or rolling contact. These control schemes all give decoupled error equations between the position loop and the internal grasp force loop.