Mechanics and Control of Soft-fingered Manipulation introduces a new approach to the modeling of fingertips that have a soft pad and a hard back plate, similar to human fingers. Starting from the observation of soft-fingered grasping and manipulation, the book provides a parallel distributed model that takes into account tangential deformation of the fingertips. The model is supported with many experimental verifications and simulation results. Statics and dynamics in soft-fingered grasping and manipulation are also formulated based on this new model. The book uniquely investigates how soft fingertips with hard back plates enhance dexterity in grasping and manipulation, theoretically and experimentally, revealing the differences between soft-fingered and rigid-fingered manipulation. Researchers involved in object manipulation by robotic hands, as well as in human dexterity in object manipulation, will find this text enlightening.

Takahiro Inoue received his MSc and PhD degrees from Ritsumeikan University, Japan. He has received funding from the Japan Society of the Promotion of Science and his current research interests include soft-fingered manipulation, soft object modeling, and MEMS technology.

Shinichi Hirai received his BSc, MSc and doctoral degrees from Kyoto University. He is now a professor in the Department of Robotics at Ritsumeikan University. His previous positions include visiting researcher at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and assistant professor at Osaka University. His current research interests are the modeling and control of deformable structures, real-time computer vision, and soft-fingered manipulation.

Observation of Soft-fingered Grasping and Manipulation.- Elastic Model of a Deformable Fingertip.- Fingertip Model with Tangential Deformation.- Variational Formulations in Mechanics.- Statics of Soft-fingered Grasping and Manipulation.- Dynamics of Soft-fingered Grasping and Manipulation.- Control of Soft-fingered Grasping and Manipulation.- Geometric and Material Nonlinear Elastic Model.- Non-Jacobian Control of Robotic Pinch Tasks.- Three-dimensional Grasping and Manipulation.- Conclusions.