Global Grasp Planning Using Triangular Meshes

In this paper we present an algorithm to determine the location of contact points to obtain force closure grasps on tree dimensional objects. The shape of the object is assumed to be given by a triangle mesh - a format widely used in CAD software. Our algorithm can handle an arbitrary number of contact points and does nor require any prior information about their initial locations. Through an iterative process, contact point locations are updated aiming at improving a commonly used grasp quality metric. The process is global in the sense that during the process the whole surface of the object can be explored, and contact point locations can cross sharp edges that usually represent a problem for optimization algorithms relying on smooth surface representations. Extensive simulation results illustrate the performance of the proposed method, outlining strengths and directions for further research.