On the spatial motion of a rigid body with point contact

This paper is an extension to the 3-dimensional case of our previous work on planar motion with point contact [2]. Here we study the so called roll-slide spatial motions. Such motions occur whenever point contact between bodies is maintained under spatial motion. We consider instantaneous time-based kinematics and assume the presence of a tactile sensor to measure the relative motion at the point of contact. It is indicated how the derived kinematic relationships can be applied to sensor based robotic path planning.