Abstract
Robots are expected to be introduced into welfare fields. However, most of the robots are currently used for production in industrial fields, and therefore were designed specifically for use in an environment without the presence of human. These robots have end-effectors with specially designed shapes and capabilities replaced suited for specific tasks. Thus, they could not be used for general purpose because their end-effectors have to be replaced by human in order to accomplish various tasks and adapt to a new one. Therefore, we focused on multifingered manipulators which are versatile end-effectors. In this research, we propose the grasping model of a couple of 2-link manipulators driven by pneumatic actuators, in which manipulators are face to face. Both manipulators are set up horizontally, and the movement direction of the joints is limited to the same direction. The concept of this control law involves virtual springs to simulate the grasping force against the object. It also calculates the torques of each joint corresponding to the grasping forces. We conduct sets of examination to move the object's center position from a starting position to another. As a result, the current object's center converges on the target object's center. Therefore, the efficiency of the proposed grasping model is verified.
