Abstract
Moving an object on a work surface by pushing it is one of the operations which are required in the robotic manipulation. The motion of the pushed object is closely related to the distribution of the frictional force between the object and the surface. When the pushing force vector applied to an object passes through the center of friction which is the centroid of the friction distribution, the motion of the object is a pure translation. In this paper, we describe a method for estimating the friction distribution of an object and the position of the center of friction by pushing the object several times using a manipulator. First, on the assumption that the object has several points in contact with the work surface, we suppose the position of the points. By this supposition, we derive a linear equation relating the pushing force and the friction distribution. Then, substituting the measurements obtained from pushing the object several times by the manipulator into this equation, we estimate the friction distribution. Simulation and experimental results show the effectiveness of the approach.
