SUPER-GRIP: an expert system for grasping boxes

An expert system is developed which determines the best grasp configuration to pick up a rectangular box. This two-level system first chooses, from a predetermined set of grasps, the ones best suited for the task using a set of rules, and then computes a quality index for each possible configuration. The program is written in LISP and was tested for many different objects and situations. The grasps found are not necessarily optimal but are efficient since they are similar to the grasps a human would choose in the same situation. Because the program gives fast results and doesn't perform tedious computations, the best grip found can easily be used as a suboptimal solution or as a starting point for an optimizing program.<>