Force-Closure Condition for Cooperative Multi-robot Pushing of Rectangular Objects

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Article Summary

In cooperative object manipulation, the placement of pushing contacts determines whether force closure can be achieved and agents can generate arbitrary forces and torques on the object correspondingly. This study derives a necessary and sufficient closed-form condition for the planar force closure of a rectangular object, a common object shape in everyday settings, under four frictionless pushing contacts. For a rectangle of length $b$ and width $a$, force closure holds if and only if $(l_1+l_3-b)(l_2+l_4-a)<0$, where $l_1,l_2,l_3,l_4$ are the four edge contact locations. This condition is independent of the object's center of mass and is used to verify contact configurations before contact force allocation. When the condition is not satisfied, the signs of the two factors indicate which opposing contact pair should be adjusted. The condition and adjustment rule are then integrated into a full-pose trajectory-tracking framework as a geometric feasibility layer to demonstrate their use in control. Static wrench feasibility tests validate the proposed condition, while narrow-passage floating-body simulations show that maintaining a force-closure configuration reduces the RMS tracking errors in $x$, $y$, and unwrapped yaw from $12.05$ m, $18.11$ m, and $535.96^\circ$ to $2.24$ m, $2.66$ m, and $2.69^\circ$, respectively.

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