A Parametric Grasping Methodology for Multi-Manual Interactions in Real-Time Dynamic Simulations

Interactive simulators are used in several important applications which include the training simulators for teleoperated robotic laparoscopic surgery. While stateof-art simulators are capable of rendering realistic visuals and accurate dynamics, grasping is often implemented using kinematic simplification techniques that prevent truly multimanual manipulation, which is often an important requirement of the actual task. Realistic grasping and manipulation in simulation is a challenging problem due to the constraints imposed by the implementation of rigid-body dynamics and collision computation techniques in state-of-the-art physics libraries. We present a penalty based parametric approach to achieve multi-manual grasping and manipulation of complex objects at arbitrary postures in a real-time dynamic simulation. This approach is demonstrated by accomplishing multi-manual tasks modeled after realistic scenarios, which include the grasping and manipulation of a two-handed screwdriver task and the manipulation of a deformable thread.