Representing dextrous manipulators with the spherically extended polytope model

摘要

Abstract: The spherically extended polytope (S-tope) model is an extension of the polytope model. Objects are represented as the convex hull of a set of spheres. An efficient algorithm for calculating the distance between s-topes is presented. The s-tope model is particularly well suited for modeling dextrous manipulators and other anthropomorphic forms. As a practical example, the Utah/MIT dextrous manipulator is represented using this method, and the time to calculate distances between the manipulator and various objects is measured. !6