An example of parts handling and self-assembly using stable limit sets

Abstract

Throwing and catching parts, similar to vibratory agitation, promises to be a powerful manipulation technique, but is analytically complicated by equations of motion involving friction and impacts. However, one can show that some simple part manipulators exhibit limit set behavior, where the parts enter a set that is invariant under the mapping that corresponds to the throwing action. We show that by analyzing limit sets directly we can design parts and their environment so that part feeding or assembling naturally emerges from the dynamics. We include experiments validating both these approaches and a discussion of future work.