Manipulability and stability of a tentacle based robot manipulator

A massively redundant, tentacle-based robot manipulator is proposed as an alternative to dextrous manipulation by an arm/hand combination. The tentacle is advantageous because it is an all-in-one arm and gripping device capable of a wide variety of configurations and grasps, while maintaining the mechanics of serial manipulators. A method for evaluating the forces and velocities imparted to an arbitrary object by a robot hand is reviewed and extended to include the case where several serial manipulators each come in contact with an object at multiple joints. From this analysis, a quantitative evaluation of grasp manipulability and stability is developed that accounts for multiple object contacts for each serial manipulator in the system. A method of applying both precision and power grasps to three-dimensional objects using a tentacle is presented that allows for easy transition between the two by merely curling or uncurling links from around the object. This method helps reduce the number of complexity of grasp configurations. Numerical simulations of different tentacle manipulators and grasps are given.<>