Nonprehensile Manipulation of Multi-Link Hinges

Abstract

Folding a multi-link hinge using nonprehensile manipulation provides insight into the problem classes of nonprehensile manipulation and nonrigid object manipulation. Because the dynamics of nonrigid object are generally governed by more parameters than rigid bodies, robustness to parameter uncertainty is particularly important for these types of tasks. In this work, we propose several Cartesian impedance controllers which utilize vision feedback, force feedback, or both to fold a multi-link hinge. We characterize the robustness of these controllers to various system parameters, which provides insight into the effect of different types of feedback on controller performance.