ABSTRACT
F oundation . Palm manipulation forms a key point in the spectrum of manipulation operations. At one end of this spectrum we have force/form closure grasps; at the other end we have free flight motions of thrown objects. Force/form closure grasps are char acterized by complete control over the object and re sultant insensitivity to environmental dynamics. Free flight motions are characterized by an impulse of initial control followed by strong sensitivity to environmental dynamics. In between these extremes lies a large class of nonprehensile manipulation operations. Research to date has explored only a small portion of this class. Some examples include quasi-static manipulation of an object on a planar support surface, such as pushing, tumbling, and pivoting. Other examples include con trolled slip motion, reorienting by tipping, and object acquisition. The unstudied problems lie in two direc tions: (i) shaping and controlling constraint surfaces other than pure point-fingers or horizontal planes, and (ii) exploiting dynamics to take advantage of dynamic coupling, much as in the work on under actuated ma nipulators. Palm manipulation offers a simple domain in which to explore these two directions.
