Using Geometry to Detect Grasping Points on 3D Unknown Point Cloud

Abstract

In this paper, we focus on the task of computing a pair of points for grasping unknown objects, given a single point cloud scene with a partial view of them. The main goal is to estimate the best pair of 3D-located points so that a gripper can perform a stable grasp over the objects in the scene with no prior knowledge of their shape. We propose a geometrical approach to find those contact points by placing them near a perpendicular cutting plane to the object’s main axis and through its centroid. During the experimentation we have found that this solution is fast enough and gives sufficiently stable grasps for being used on a real service robot.