In-Hand Manipulation: Finger Gaiting Simulator

In-hand manipulation is one of robotic grasping's hardest open problems: reorienting an object while it stays inside the grasp, without ever setting it down to re-grab it. This simulator shows a three-fingered hand holding a cube by force closure — friction at each fingertip resisting the pull of gravity from every side — then performing finger gaiting to rotate the object past the small range a fixed grasp or wrist twist alone could reach. One finger releases at a time, swings to a fresh contact point further around the object, and re-presses, restoring force closure with the object advanced a few degrees. A live grasp-stability meter tracks how well the current contacts resist slipping, dipping each time a finger is mid-transfer and only two contacts remain, then recovering once the gait cycle closes. Set a target rotation and gait speed and watch the sequence accumulate rotation cycle by cycle.