Softness Effects on Manipulability and Grasp Stability

This paper presents a novel analysis for the effects of softness at the fingertip on the manipulability and stability of grasping. The stability for grasping can be regarded that how much magnitude of external wrench we can balance. We formulate manipulability and the set of generable object wrenches for grasping system, taking deformation of the fingertips into consideration, and show that the increase of the softness decreases the manipulability while it increases generable object wrench. The validity of our analysis is shown by numerical examples. © 2011 IEEE