Abstract: It is necessary to have at least four separate planners in a robot grasp system:a strategic planner,a tactical planner,a trajectory planner, and a grasp planner. The grasp planner is very important for grasping successfully. In the grasp planner,a vision module is used to transform an image to an object description. Then,a grasp mode selection module is used to transform the object description to a set of control signals which yield the desired hand orientation and preshape. This paper surveys the research in optimal grasp planning and the expert system-based grasp planning,especially in the expert system-based grasp planning. The major problems in the research are discussed.