• E The rope is tied around a cylindrical pole by dual 6 D.O.F direct drive manipulators. • E The manipulators confirm that the rope is grasped by both hands using the force sensor. • E A flexible object model and a CCD camera vision system are used to recognize the shape of the rope.

This article describes a project undertaken to explore programming physical operations on complex flexible objects. Uncertainty about the exact state of the object makes it impossible to precisely specify the actions to be performed at the time the program is written. Furthermore, the detailed consequences of manipulations on flexible objects cannot be determined before the action is performed....

We propose an effective and intuitive method for controlling flexible models such as ropes and cloth. Automating manipulation of such flexible objects is not an easy task due to the high dimensionality of the objects and the low dimensionality of the control. In order to cope with this problem, we introduce a method called Geodesic Control, which greatly helps to manipulate flexible objects. Th...

Assembly operations that involve exible parts differ greatly from rigid-part assembly due to the capacity of the parts to comply with motions of the manipu-lators by yielding to the contact forces. This natural compliance can be exploited in the design of tasks involving the manipulation of exible loads. Namely, using knowledge about the force vector eld generated by conservative restoring forc...

This paper provides preliminary insight into stiffness profile identification of a complex flexible object by robotic manipulation. The object is in the shape of the letter ‘Y’, chosen to resemble a living plant. The object is approximately modelled as a spring mass system. The robot manipulates the object with one or two arms, grasped at the ends of the ‘Y’, and makes visual measurements which...

This paper presents a new systematic algorithm to symbolically derive the full nonlinear dynamic equations of motion of multi-link flexible manipulators. Lagrange's-Assumed modes method is the basis of the new algorithm and adapted in a way suitable for symbolic manipulation by digital computers. It is aaplied to model a two-link fleXIble arm via a commercially available symbolic manipulation p...

This research focuses on proposing an optimal trajectory planning and control method of two link rigid-flexible manipulators (TLRFM) for Dynamic Object Manipulation (DOM) missions. For the first time, achievement of DOM task using a rotating one flexible link robot was taken into account in [20]. The authors do not aim to contribute on either trajectory tracking or vibration control of the End-...