On dynamic whole body manipulation

Dextrous manipulation of objects by a robot arm is one of the central problems in robotics research. This paper first studies basic modeling and dynamic control problems of whole body manipulation systems by the assumption of using sensitive skin. As an example, we treat a 2-link planar whole arm manipulation system with a circle object. We first formulate the system dynamics with sliding contact and rolling friction constrains between the robot link and the object. We then develop a model-based tracking control algorithm for the robot to manipulate the center of mass of the object. Further, modeling in the presence of dynamic friction is considered. The validity of the proposed method is investigated by numerical simulations.