  Inertial parameters characterise an object's motion under applied forces, and
can provide strong priors for planning and control of robotic actions to
manipulate the object. However, these parameters are not available a-priori in
situations where a robot encounters new objects. In this paper, we describe and
categorise the ways that a robot can identify an object's inertial parameters.
We also discuss grasping and manipulation methods in which knowledge of
inertial parameters is exploited in various ways. We begin with a discussion of
literature which investigates how humans estimate the inertial parameters of
objects, to provide background and motivation for this area of robotics
research. We frame our discussion of the robotics literature in terms of three
categories of estimation methods, according to the amount of interaction with
the object: purely visual, exploratory, and fixed-object. Each category is
analysed and discussed. To demonstrate the usefulness of inertial estimation
research, we describe a number of grasping and manipulation applications that
make use of the inertial parameters of objects. The aim of the paper is to
thoroughly review and categorise existing work in an important, but
under-explored, area of robotics research, present its background and
applications, and suggest future directions. Note that this paper does not
examine methods of identification of the robot's inertial parameters, but
rather the identification of inertial parameters of other objects which the
robot is tasked with manipulating.

Robotics