Handling shape and contact location uncertainty in grasping two-dimensional planar objects

This paper addresses the problem of selecting contact locations for grasping objects in the presence of shape and contact location uncertainty. Focusing on two-dimensional planar objects and two finger grasps for simplicity, we present a principled approach for selecting contact points by analyzing the risk of force closure failure. The key contribution of this paper is the development of a method that incorporates shape uncertainty into grasp stability analysis. We propose a grasp quality metric that can be used to identify stable contact regions in the face of shape and contact location uncertainty. The proposed method successfully distinguishes grasps that are equivalent without uncertainty, and we illustrate the properties of this technique with simulation experiments in two classes of objects.