General purpose robotic manipulation

A general-purpose manipulator may act as a sensory device or perform in either a powerful or a dexterous mode of operation. Work toward a control methodology which supports general-purpose manipulation is presented. Three major issues in the development of intelligent robotic systems are identified: the design of well-behaved robots, the perceptual problem, and strategy synthesis. The focus is on the control of multifingered robot hands. The discussion includes a description of the well-behaved robot (a robot and low-level controller which are inherently good at manipulation) and focuses on manipulation strategy synthesis. The perceptual problem is not considered. A schematic of a proposed controller and a description of its major components are presented. Experiments illuminating the behavior of the strategy synthesis portion of the controller are presented for grasp planning and multifingered manipulation