Dynamic coordination of a multiple robotic system with point contact.

The authors treat two fundamental problems of a multiple robotic system: grasp planning and the determination of coordinated control laws with point-contact models. First, using the dual notions of grasp stability and manipulability and a procedure they previously developed for task modeling, they define structure grasp quality measures. These measures are then integrated to devise a grasp-planning algorithm. Second, based on the assumption of point-contact models, the authors develop a computed-torque-like control algorithm for the coordinated manipulation of a multifingered robot hand. This control algorithm, which takes into account both the dynamics of the object and the dynamics of the manipulators, is computationally effective an can be easily generalized to allow rolling motion of the object with respect to the fingertip.