Multi-Fingered Robotic Grasping: A Primer

It has been argued that grasping, manipulation, and speech are among the most fundamental human abilities unparalleled by animals [7]. The importance of manipulation and grasping is also evidenced by “the large fraction of the human motor cortex devoted to manipulation and the number and sensitivity of mechanoreceptors in our palms and fingertips” [57]. Starting from these observations it is unsurprising that grasping and manipulation generated significant interest in the robotics community, and robotic grasping emerged as an autonomous area of research since the development of the first robotic hands. Notwithstanding, robotic grasping continues to be one of the most challenging areas in robotics. Its inherent difficulty is well captured by Moravec’s paradox, “It is comparatively easy to make computers exhibit adult level performance on intelligence tests or playing checkers, and difficult to give them the skills of a one-year old when it comes to perception and dexterity” [52].