Generalized stability of compliant grasps

We develop a geometric framework for the stability analysis of multifingered grasps and propose a measure of grasp stability for arbitrary perturbations and loading conditions. The measure requires a choice of metric on the group of rigid body displacements. We show that although the stability of a grasp itself does not depend on the choice of metric, comparison of the stability of different grasps depends on the metric. Finally, we provide some insight into the choice of metrics for stability analysis.