Geometry-Based Manipulation through Robotic Caging

Caging is a method to confine object configurations by a closed region made by robot bodies. It can be used as a substitute for or a complement to conventional grasping in robotic manipulation. Because caging is a geometrical concept, manipulation via caging falls into a class of “geometry-based manipulation.” Geometry-based manipulation can be performed by position-controlled robots according to only geometrical information, which is a merit for the present level of robot technology. In this paper, we discuss three forms of geometry-based manipulation via caging: caging manipulation by robots and walls, in-hand caging manipulation, and cagingbased grasping by robot fingers with soft skins. We present basic ideas and some experimental results of them.