Finding locally optimum force-closure grasps

This paper presents an iterative procedure to find locally optimum force-closure grasps on 3D objects, with or without friction and with any number of fingers. The object surface is discretized in a cloud of points, so the approach is applicable to objects with any arbitrary shape. The approach finds an initial force-closure grasp that is then iteratively improved through an oriented search procedure. The grasp quality is measured considering the largest perturbation wrench that the grasp can resist with independence of the direction of perturbation. The efficiency of the algorithm is illustrated through numerical examples.