Picking Thin Objects by Tilt-and-Pivot Manipulation and Its Application to Bin Picking

Abstract

This paper introduces the technique of tilt-and-pivot manipulation, a new method for picking thin, rigid objects lying on a flat surface through robotic dexterous in-hand manipulation. During the manipulation process, the gripper is controlled to reorient about the contact with the object such that its finger can get in the space between the object and the supporting surface, which is formed by tilting up the object, with no relative sliding motion at the contact. As a result, a pinch grasp can be obtained on the faces of the thin object with ease. We discuss issues regarding the kinematics and planning of tilt-and-pivot, effector shape design, and the overall practicality of the manipulation technique, which is general enough to be applicable to any rigid convex polygonal objects. We also present a set of experiments in a range of bin picking scenarios.