Experiments on dextrous manipulation without prior object models

In this paper we present a kinematic method for 6-degree-of-freedom manipulation of rigid objects using a dextrous robotic hand. Our method does not require prior models of the objects to be manipulated; all the information needed can be obtained directly from the hand´s sensors. The method allows arbitrary (within the robot´s physical limits) translations and rotations of the object, and its low computational cost makes real-time performance easy to achieve. We present experimental results of manipulation using the Utah/MIT hand, a 16-DOF dextrous manipulator, and show that with the addition of a Cartesian controller a high degree of accuracy can be attained