Sampling-Based Finger Gaits Planning

F gait is a strategy for a multi-fingered robotic hand to change its grasp status sequentially by relocating its fingers, which gives the hand more dexterity to perform large scale or complicated dextrous manipulations (Hong et al. 1990). In a finger gait, the robotic hand must achieve the desired configuration of both the object and the fingers, which involves the manipulation of the object as well as the adjustment of the contact points, while satisfying all manipulation constraints, such as workspace limits, force balance requirement, etc. Therefore, a key problem in a finger gait is how to autonomously generate a feasible sequence of different grasp status to accomplish the manipulation task while avoiding any failure of manipulation constraints. One unique characteristic of a finger gait is its hybrid nature: the discontinuity caused by the relocation of