Manipulation of a sliding object

Planning manipulation of an object free to slide on a surface is an important problem in many robotic applications. Physical analysis of the object´s motion is made difficult by the absence of information about the distribution of support of the object on the surface, and of the resulting frictional forces. Here we describe a new approach to the analysis of sliding motion. We present results for the locus of centers of rotation for all possibie distributions of support. In one application to robotic manipulation, bounds on the distance an object must be pushed to come into alignment with a robot finger or a fence are determined.