Abstract

A task-oriented approach to the modeling of soft fine objects is presented. There are many manufacturing processes that require manipulations of soft and deformable objects such as strings, cords, tubes, and so on. Evaluating deformed shapes of soft objects in these processes is important for the successful automatic manipulations. In this paper, we establish task-oriented modeling of soft fine objects in consideration of actual manipulations. Firstly, we formulate the potential energy of a deformed object. Secondly, we compute the deformed shapes using minimization of the potential energy under geometric constraints imposed by manipulators and obstacles. Finally, we measure bending deformation of a sheet of paper in order to compare the measured shapes with computed ones.

Keywords : modeling, soft objects, deformation, task-oriented, manipulation