CKBot, Whole-arm Grasping and MoveIt!
Jun Seo, at the GRASP Lab in the University of Pennsylvania, has been working on integrating MoveIt! with the CKBot robotic platform. CKBot is a modular robot that can be configured in custom ways for different tasks. It consists of cubical modules approximately 6 cm on each side that can be connected to each other quickly. Jun has written a fantastic tutorial on the integration of MoveIt! with CKBot, which is a good template for anyone integrating a new custom robot with MoveIt!.
Jun’s research involves using curved (for example, planar, cylindrical, or spherical) end-effectors for stable grasping, in contrast to customary point fingertips. He has shown that every polyhedral object can be immobilized and caged with at most three such curved effectors. As one application of the theory, he has implemented whole-arm grasping using a two-armed robot - watch the movie below to learn more about Jun’s work with MoveIt!.