Mechanics and Control of Soft-fingered Manipulation

Takahiro Inoue received his MSc and PhD degrees from Ritsumeikan University, Japan. He has received funding from the Japan Society of the Promotion of Science and his current research interests include soft-fingered manipulation, soft object modeling, and MEMS technology. Shinichi Hirai received his BSc, MSc and doctoral degrees from Kyoto University. He is now a professor in the Department of Robotics at Ritsumeikan University. His previous positions include visiting researcher at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and assistant professor at Osaka University. His current research interests are the modeling and control of deformable structures, real-time computer vision, and soft-fingered manipulation.

Observation of Soft-fingered Grasping and Manipulation.- Elastic Model of a Deformable Fingertip.- Fingertip Model with Tangential Deformation.- Variational Formulations in Mechanics.- Statics of Soft-fingered Grasping and Manipulation.- Dynamics of Soft-fingered Grasping and Manipulation.- Control of Soft-fingered Grasping and Manipulation.- Geometric and Material Nonlinear Elastic Model.- Non-Jacobian Control of Robotic Pinch Tasks.- Three-dimensional Grasping and Manipulation.- Conclusions.