Multi-Metric Comparison of Optimal 2D Grasp Planning Algorithms

The planning of optimal grasps is an important problem in robotics which has been investigated by many researchers. The large number of available methods has made it difficult to discern those which plan a grasp with good overall performance, i.e. one with high strength, insensitivity to positioning errors, and ease of computation. In this paper, a new grasp planning method is introduced and compared to three existing planning methods using three such metrics. A new metric for measuring the sensitivity of a grasp to positioning errors is also introduced. Since grasp planning is much simpler in 2D, and 2D grasps are applicable to many 3D objects, the four methods involve only 2D analysis. The methods are applied to a set of six polygonal objects, ranging from 3 sided to 74 sided, and their overall performance is compared. The benchmarking procedure is readily applicable to other grasp planning methods.