Ph.D. Preliminary Exam - Jiang Tian

Date: 26 Jan, 2009
Time: 3:00 PM
Location: 223 Atanasoff Hall
Topic: Two Robot Fingers Squeeze Grasping of Deformable Objects
Major Professor(s): Yan-Bin Jia


Abstract:

We deal with deformable objects everyday in our life. Examples include clothes, plastic bottles, paper, magazines, ropes, wires, cables, balls, tires, toys, sofas, fruits, vegetables, meat, processed food (e.g., cakes, dumplings, buns, noodles), plants, pets, biological tissues, and so on. The ability to manipulate deformable objects is an indispensable part of the human hand's dexterity and an important feature of intelligence.

In robotics, though much research has been done on planning and manipulation that involve rigid objects, not until recently did deformable objects start getting attention from a critical mass of researchers. Work in this new area has primarily targeted linear and meshed deformable objects. In particular, some researchers have investigated knotting and unknotting with ropes and wires. However, only a fraction of existing work has been demonstrated through robot experiments.

Analysis of grasp properties and construction of force-closure grasps on rigid objects have been extensively investigated in the last two decades. However, little research has been done on grasping of deformable objects. Our proposed work seeks to understand the evolution of contact friction cones under two-finger squeeze grasp, which is crucial to decide whether force-closure applies for grasping of deformable objects or not.