Kinesthetic sensing of hole position by 3-finger gripper

Abstract

In this study, we present a novel method for ‘peg-in-hole’ assembly using a multi-joint three-fingered gripper. In previous studies, we have conducted peg-in-hole assembly based on spiral search method, not knowing the exact hole position. However, search time varies greatly depending on the error between the peg and the hole, it was difficult to estimate tact time of the assembly task. In this paper, in order to reduce the search time deviation of the hole, we propose a method that estimating the direction of the hole first before conducting the search motion. Direction of the hole is estimated by ‘kinesthetic sensing’ using the fingers grasping the peg. The feasibility of the proposed method has been verified through peg-in-hole assembly experiments using the three-fingered robot gripper.