Robotic Nonprehensile Manipulation of a Pinned Beam Using Impulsive Forces

Aakash Khandelwal; Ranjan Mukherjee

RA-L 20260 citations

Robotic Nonprehensile Manipulation of a Pinned Beam Using Impulsive Forces

Abstract

The problem of juggling a pinned beam using intermittent impulsive forces, applied by a general-purpose robot, is addressed. The beam is juggled between two angular configurations by synchronizing the trajectory of the robot with the motion of the beam using virtual holonomic constraints (VHCs); the VHC parameters are derived based on the desired impulse and its location of application on the beam. The VHC approach results in a control design that is time-independent and eliminates the need for estimating the time of flight. Experimental results demonstrate that the control objective is achieved despite mechanical losses, delays, uncertainty in the coefficient of restitution, and robot-specific motion constraints.

BibTeX

@inproceedings{ral2026_roboticnonprehen,
  title = {Robotic Nonprehensile Manipulation of a Pinned Beam Using Impulsive Forces},
  author = {Aakash Khandelwal and Ranjan Mukherjee},
  booktitle = {RA-L 2026},
  year = {2026}
}