Optimum grasp for multi-fingered hands with point contact with friction using the modified singular value decomposition

For the case of a grasp with point contact with friction, a very important result is derived which leads to a considerable simplification in the computation of the contact intensities. Further, it is shown that there exists a particular point, called the center of the grasp, at which the direction of the force applied to the object does not influence the contact intensities. Following this it is demonstrated that the vector containing the contact intensities, generated by a unit couple applied to the object generates an ellipsoid, which is defined as the grasp ellipsoid. The two smaller axes of this ellipsoid show where to place the contacts to minimize the contact forces for a given task.<>