ESTIMATION OF MASS AND CENTER OF MASS OF UNKNOWN AND GRASPLESS CYLINDER-LIKE OBJECT

摘要

In manipulating an object stably and accurately by a robot, the mass and the center of mass of the object is often required. For cases when the weight or shape of an object is over the grasp capacity of a robot's hand, a technique that can estimate the mass and center of mass of a graspless unknown object, which has curved surfaces and a base plane is proposed in this paper. A line called Passing-C.M. Line which contains the center of mass, is defined. For estimating the passing-C.M. line, we proposed the Tip Operation by a robot finger, which tips the object slowly and repeatedly in a parallel motion with a vertical operation plane. Using the fingertip position and force information measured from tip operations, an algorithm to estimate the passing-C.M. line is described. Then an algorithm to estimate the mass and center of mass of the object is given by estimating the intersecting point of several differently oriented passing-C.M. lines.