Null-Space Grasp Control: Theory and Experiments

A key problem in robot grasping is that of positioning the manipulator contacts so that an object can be grasped. In unstructured environments, contact positions are typically planned based on range or visual measurements that are used to reconstruct object geometry. However, because it is difficult to measure the complete object geometry precisely in common grasp scenarios, it is useful to employ additional techniques to adjust or refine the grasp using local information only. In particular, grasp control techniques can be used to improve a grasp by adjusting the contact configuration after making initial contact with an object by using measurements of local object geometry at the contacts. This paper proposes three variations on null-space grasp control: an approach that combines multiple grasp objectives to improve a grasp. Two of these variations are theoretically demonstrated to converge to force-closure configurations for arbitrary convex objects when grasping with two contacts. All variations are found to converge in simulation. Robot-grasping experiments are reported that show the approach to be useful in practice.