The Instantaneous Kinematics of Manipulation

Dextrous manipulation planning is a problem of paramount importance in the study of multi ngered robotic hands. In this paper, we show in general, that all system variables (the nger joint, object,and contact velocities) need to be included in the di erential kinematic equation used for manipulation planning, even if the manipulation task is only speci ed in terms of the goal con guration of the object or the contacts only. The dextrous manipulation kinematics that relates the nger joint movements to object and contact movements is derived. With the results of inverse and forward instantaneous kinematics, we precisely formulate the problem of dextrous manipulation and cast it in a form suitable for integrating the relevant theory of contact kinematics, nonholonomic motion planning, and grasp stability to develop a general technique for dextrous manipulation planning with multi ngered hands.