Multifingered hand system which can acquire the object model by manipulation with a multifingered hand

The multifingered hand (MFH) described has 4 fingers, and a 6-axis force-torque sensor is mounted on each fingertip. The MFH system classify the finger into grasping fingers and manipulating fingers. The system has 4 grasp modes which is classified by the number of grasping fingers, and has 12 grasping force patterns. The contact faces (CFs) of the grasped object can be calculated by using the contact point information, when the object is a polyhedron. Acquisition of an object model is achieved by connecting the calculated CFs using the contact point information. When the MFH grasps an unknown object, the system select the grasping force pattern so as to achieve stable grasp. At the same time, an initial model of the grasped object is acquired. Next, the hand starts manipulating the object. During manipulation, the system checks whether the CF at the fingertip has changed or not. If the CF of the fingertip has changed, then a new CF is added to the object model. The object model is constructed incrementally with the progress of manipulation. Finally, experimental results are shown to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed scheme.