Toward the set of frictional velocity fields generable by 6-degree-of-freedom oscillatory motion of a rigid plate

A position-dependent asymptotic velocity field describes the motion of point parts sliding with friction on the surface of a rigid oscillating plate. These fields can be used to perform manipulation tasks such as sensorless positioning of one or several parts simultaneously. This paper examines the set of fields F generated by periodic plate motions M that combine a single in-plane component and a single out-of-plane component that have square wave accelerations with 50% duty cycles, identical periods, and an arbitrary phase between them. By deconstructing the full map Π : M → F into three simpler maps, we expose the structure of F and its relationship to M. To illustrate, we focus on particular plate motions in M that generate fields well approximated by polynomial functions of position with degree n ≤ 2. Numerical simulations suggest that fields generated from plate motions with more than a single inplane and a single out-of-plane component (all with the same period and square wave accelerations) are well approximated by linear combinations of fields in F.