A practical simulation method for pick-and-place with vacuum gripper

Simulation models which reproduce physical behavior have been proposed to make tuning robot motion for a task such as pick-and-place (P&P) easy. This paper presents a practical simulation method for P&P with vacuum gripper using suction-cups. The method is composed of two elements, a model to estimate the quality of P&P motion and a procedure for model identification. An advantage of this method is adaptability for various workpieces and suction-cups, achieved by fusion of a simple model and a simple procedure. The simple model is composed of transfer function model for viscoelasticity of system and wrench space representation for grasp stability. We also verify the model by applying to two actual systems.