Interactive Robotic Manipulation of Elastic Objects

Abstract

In this paper, we address the challenge of robotic manipulation of elastically deforming objects. To this end, we model elastic objects using the Finite Element Method. Through a quasi-static assumption, we leverage sensitivity analysis to mathematically model how changes in the robot's configuration affect the deformed shape of the object being manipulated. This enables an interactive, simulation-based control methodology, wherein user-specified deformations for the elastic objects are automatically mapped to joint angle commands. The optimization formulation we introduce is general, operates directly within a robot's workspace and can readily incorporate joint limits as well as collision avoidance between the links. We validate our control methodology on a YuMi® IRB 14000, which we use to manipulate a variety of elastic objects.