Abstract
This paper describes a motion planning system for intelligent manipulations using a parallel two-fingered gripper which has multiple manipulation skills. The basic approach of this planning system is the state-space approach which is described in states and operators and solves problems by searching state-space from initial state to goal state. The operators correspond to the manipulation skills and transform a state into another state. This paper proposes the methods to define the operators and the states of the environment and to search the state-space. It can plan motions for intelligent manipulations by combining the manipulation skills according to the environment.
The key idea behind this approach is to augment the handling ability of a parallel two-fingered gripper, instead of developing a difficult and complicated control method that uses a sophisticated but weak multi-fingered gripper. To actually implement this idea, we have developed a new, small and simple mechanism attached to a parallel two-fingered gripper. It can rotate an object around the axis between the finger tips by the mechanism in addition to picking, placing and sliding an object.
