Hitting from any direction in 3-D space by a robot with a flexible link hammer

This paper describes a hammering robot with a flexible link which can hit an object from an arbitrary direction in a 3-D space. A dynamical equation of a flexible link hammer is presented by taking gravity into consideration. The conditions that the hammer can strike an object flatwise with only a normal velocity to its face are investigated, and a manipulating method to satisfy the hitting conditions is obtained.