# Study proposes virtual nonholonomic constraints for nonprehensile robotic catching

- Source: arXiv cs.RO
- Published: 2026-10-27T04:00:00.000Z
- RoboHot: https://robohot.news/en/items/sljvj6y3hlutvo7lukk59omqq
- Original: https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.35851

## Summary

The paper proposes using virtual nonholonomic constraints (VNHCs) to address the problem of nonprehensile robotic catching, designing and controlling the motion of the end-effector directly based on the object's state before it is caught, without the need to predict the object's trajectory and generate a time-varying robot trajectory. In the planar case, the method can catch the object at a desired height and minimize the relative normal velocity at the instant of contact; the same VNHC function depends only on the target catching height and can cover a range of initial conditions. After contact, model predictive control (MPC) is used to bring the object and end-effector to rest at a specified position. The approach has so far been validated in simulation.