Force-Closure Condition for Cooperative Multi-robot Pushing of Rectangular Objects

Engineering notes

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Chinese explanation / 中文解读

中文解读待补充：本站会优先为 VLA、具身智能、人形机器人控制、机器人操作等高价值论文补充中文说明。

Original abstract

In cooperative object manipulation, the placement of pushing contacts determines whether force closure can be achieved and agents can generate arbitrary forces and torques on the object correspondingly. This study derives a necessary and sufficient closed-form condition for the planar force closure of a rectangular object, a common object shape in everyday settings, under four frictionless pushing contacts. For a rectangle of length $b$ and width $a$, force closure holds if and only if $(l_1+l_3-b)(l_2+l_4-a)<0$, where $l_1,l_2,l_3,l_4$ are the four edge contact locations. This condition is independent of the object's center of mass and is used to verify contact configurations before contact force allocation. When the condition is not satisfied, the signs of the two factors indicate which opposing contact pair should be adjusted. The condition and adjustment rule are then integrated into a full-pose trajectory-tracking framework as a geometric feasibility layer to demonstrate their use in control. Static wrench feasibility tests validate the proposed condition, while narrow-passage floating-body simulations show that maintaining a force-closure configuration reduces the RMS tracking errors in $x$, $y$, and unwrapped yaw from $12.05$ m, $18.11$ m, and $535.96^\circ$ to $2.24$ m, $2.66$ m, and $2.69^\circ$, respectively.

Links and sources

• Official / arXiv page
• PDF from original source

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