Sliding Sensors: Configurable Confidence in State Estimation for Continuum Robots

Abstract:Continuum robots often operate in uncertain environments, where accurate state estimation is essential for safe interactions. Estimate uncertainty is inherently spatially non-uniform: confidence varies depending on where measurements are available. Global estimation accuracy is not always the top priority, but rather achieving sufficient confidence at task-relevant locations along the robot. This extended abstract introduces mechanically reconfigurable sensing enabling uncertainty-shaping in state estimation for continuum robots. We present a concept hardware design demonstrating the feasibility of longitudinal translation of a sensor within a continuum robot. We demonstrate that state estimation confidence can be reconfigured by varying the sensor location, and show a reduction of full-body shape estimation errors when sliding the sensor back and forth over time, compared to a single fixed tip sensor.

Accepted as an extended abstract at 2026 IEEE 9th International Conference on Soft Robotics (RoboSoft). * Equal contribution

Robotics (cs.RO)

arXiv:2608.05410 [cs.RO]

(or arXiv:2608.05410v1 [cs.RO] for this version)

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2608.05410 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration)

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