An exploration of sensorless manipulation

Thesis Summary: A Nonprehensile Method for Reliable Parts Orienting

Prehension may be defined as “The act of taking hold, seizing or grasping, as with the hand” (Webster’s 3rd International Dictionary). Nonprehensile manipulation, then, can be defined as the manipulation of objects without grasping them. Manipulation without prehension is a natural way of handling objects for both humans and machines. The ability to manipulate objects which may not be graspable...

A Theory of Manipulation and Control for Microfabricated Actuator Arrays

This paper investigates manipulation tasks with arrays of microelectromechanical structures (MEMS). We develop a model for the mechanics of microactuators and a theory of sensorless, parallel manipulation, and we describe e cient algorithms for their evaluation. The theory of limit surfaces o ers a purely geometric characterization of micro-scale contacts between actuator and moving object, whi...

Sensorless parts orienting with a one-joint manipulator

This paper explores a sensorless technique for orienting planar parts. We follow an approach described in earlier papers [3, 4] called 1JOC for One Joint Over Conveyor, which can perform planar manipulation using a single controlled joint in combination with a constant-velocity conveyor. Our previous work demonstrated that the 1JOC approach can orient and feed planar polygonal parts, given a si...

Sensorless In-Hand Caging Manipulation

Sensorless Commutation of BLDC Motor without Low Pass Filter and Phase Shifter

 In this paper, a novel sensorless commutation method for BLDC motors is presented to simultaneously eliminate phase shifter and low-pass filter. An analytical model of the motor is presented and ripples resulted from the current commutation are investigated in detail. By detecting the zero crossing points of the unfiltered voltages of the motor terminals referred to the ground and DC link, the...