Mechanics and Control of Soft-fingered Manipulation introduces a new approach to the modeling of fingertips that have a soft pad and a hard back plate, similar to human fingers. Starting from the observation of soft-fingered grasping and manipulation, the book provides a parallel distributed model that takes into account tangential deformation of the fingertips. The model is supported with many experimental verifications and simulation results. Statics and dynamics in soft-fingered grasping and manipulation are also formulated based on this new model. The book uniquely investigates how...

Localized slippage occurs during any relative sliding of soft contacts, ranging from human fingertips to robotic fingertips. Although this phenomenon is dominant for a very short time prior to gross slippage, localized slippage is a crucial factor for any to-be-developed soft sensing system to respond to slippage before it occurs. The content of this book addresses all aspects of localized slippage, including modeling and simulating it, as well as applying it to the construction of novel sensors with slip tactile perception.