Report Number: CS-TR-95-1559
Institution: Stanford University, Department of Computer Science
Title: On the number of equilibrium placements of mass distributions
in elliptic potential fields
Author: Kavraki, Lydia E.
Date: December 1995
Abstract: Recent papers have demonstrated the use of force fields for
mechanical part orientation. The force field is realized on a
plane on which the part is placed. The forces exerted on the
part's contact surface translate and rotate the part to an
equilibrium orientation. Part manipulation by force fields is
very attractive since it requires no sensing. We describe
force fields that result from elliptic potentials and induce
only 2 stable equilibrium orientations for most parts. The
proposed fields represent a considerable improvement over
previously developed force fields which produced O(n)
equilibria for polygonal parts with n vertices. The
successful realization of these force fields could
significantly affect part manipulation in industrial
automation.
http://i.stanford.edu/pub/cstr/reports/cs/tr/95/1559/CS-TR-95-1559.pdf