DESIGN OF GRASPING METHODOLOGIES FOR ROTATIONAL ASSEMBLY COMPONENTS

This article describes a design methodology for grasping assembly comp onents. Three heuristics are developed. The first determines feasible grasping configurations based on component geometric information. The second heuristic determines feasible grasping configurations by includ ing gripper functional attributes. The third heuristic generates the f inal set of grasping configurations by including the area available fo r grasping a component. An interactive program written in Fortran 77 i s developed to capture the user inputs, and a sample application is de scribed. The methodology does not assume an initial feeding state of t he component to the robot. The grasping configurations generated (if m ore than one) provide the designer with alternate feasible feeding met hods.