Dynamics and planning of collisions in robotic manipulation

The author treats the problem of collision between a robot end-effector and the manipulated object in robot catching. By applying rigid-body impact mechanics, intermittent dynamics involving a sequence of collisions is modeled by a difference-algebraic system. Through a stability analysis, the author presents open-loop strategies to perform a task using a paddlelike end-effector to catch a circular object in two-dimensional space. Computer simulation results have shown that the strategies are reliable and effective. The generalization of the method to more general robotic manipulation in dynamical environments is also discussed