Fast computation of 4-fingered force-closure grasps from surface points

This paper addresses the problem of computing frictional 4-fingered force-closure grasps of three-dimensional objects. The proposed approach searches for force-closure grasps from a collection of sampled points on the object's surface. Unlike most other works, the approach is not limited to the objects with a certain class of shapes. It can be applied to an object in any shape since only the object's surface points and corresponding surface normal at the points are needed. The efficiency of the approach arises from a heuristic for search space pruning which is based on ability to efficiently locate regions in three dimensional space where friction cones intersect and a randomized test for checking force-closure condition. The proposed approach is implemented and preliminary results are presented.