Planning force-closure grasps on 3-D objects

Computation of grasps with form/force-closure is one of the fundamental problems in the study of multifingered grasping and dexterous manipulation. Based on the geometric condition of the closure property, this paper presents a numerical test to quantify how far a grasp is from losing form/force-closure. With the polyhedral approximation of the friction cone, the proposed numerical test can be formulated as a single linear program. An iterative algorithm for computing optimal force-closure grasps, which is implemented by minimizing the proposed numerical test in the grasp configuration space, is also developed. The algorithm is computationally efficient and generally applicable. It can be used for computing form/force-closure grasps on 3D objects with curved surfaces, and with any number of contact points. Several simulation examples are given to show the effectiveness and computational efficiency of the proposed algorithm.