Dexterous manipulation using both palm and fingers

This paper focuses on the problem of manipulating the orientation of a polygonal object in hand. We propose a control technique which integrates the use of palm and fingers to pick up a given object on the table, to drop it on a specific spot on the palm, and to let it roll continuously and controllably on the palm, subject to the gravitational and contact forces. We formulate a simple and fast algorithm to control the tilting angle of the palm based on the conservation of mechanical energy and an empirical model of energy dissipation due to collisions. We also develop a multifingers controller for stable grasp and for correcting the rolling motion. The proposed technique is demonstrated on a simulated robotic hand manipulating a wide range of objects with different geometry and physical properties.