Toward sensorless manipulation using airflow

Distributed manipulation systems induce motions on objects through the application of forces at many points of contact. Current forms of distributed manipulation include multiple mobile robots, vibrating plates, actively controlled arrays of air jets, and planar micro and macro-mechanical arrays of actuators. The authors have presented a new form of distributed manipulation using passive air flow fields, which has been experimentally demonstrated along with a computational method to locate equilibria. This paper presents a numerical approach to check the uniqueness of the pivot point of lifted logarithmic potentials. For objects with a unique pivot point, a squeeze-like sequential manipulation using air flow which brings the object to a unique final pose is presented and verified with experiments.