Continuum Robot Design

Latest papers

17 papers4 papers in the last four weeks, against 2 the four weeks before. 0.0% of all new papers.

A Probabilistic, Rotation-Preserving Kernel Operator Surrogate for Continuum-Robot Design Spaces
Oct 19, 2026Branden Frieden, Alan Kuntz, Varun ShankarNeural Surrogate Modeling Continuum Robot Design
The Kahlert School of Computing at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA. · The Departments of Computer Science and Electrical and Computer Engineering at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, 37203, USA.
Adaptive Bendpoint Formation in Octopus-Inspired Soft Continuum Arms
Oct 18, 2026Jessica Gumowski, Julian Finn, Krishna Manaswi Digumarti +1Continuum Robot Design Soft Robotics
Centre for Robotics, Queensland University of Technology, Brisane, 4000 QLD, Australia. · School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics, Queensland University of Technology, Brisane, 4000 QLD, Australia. · CSIRO Robotics, Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Pullenvale, QLD 4069, Australia. +1
Design and Characterization of a Unified Continuum Robot Actuation Platform
Oct 14, 2026Yunti Xu, Aedan Mangan, Miheer Potdar +2Modular Robotics Continuum Robot Design
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of California, San Diego, CA, 92093, USA.
ShowerFlex: Achieving Pseudo-Static Balancing in a Continuum Shower Hose
Oct 1, 2026Zhiyu Ren, Girish KrishnanMechanism Design Assistive Robotics
Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign Urbana, Illinois 61801
Anatomy-Aware Dexterity-Driven Design Optimization of Surgical Continuum Robots
Sep 25, 2026Tony Qin, Peter Connor, Khoa Dang +4Continuum Robot Design Robotics
Department of Computer Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill · Department of Mechanical Engineering, Vanderbilt University · Department of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Biomedical Engineering at The University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Tendon-Driven Continuum Robot with Modular Stiffness and In-Situ Self Pose Estimation
Sep 14, 2026Guo Ning Sue, Zheng Cao, Junzhe Hu +5Modular Robotics Robotics
Carnegie Mellon University
Bridging Language and Physics: Automated Design of Continuum Robots with Large Language Models
Sep 8, 2026Jingyi Chen, Mohan Zhang, Laura Yao +5Robotics Continuum Robot Design
School of Computer Science and Technology, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China · Department of Computer Science, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, USA · Department of Computer Science, University of Central Florida, Orlando, USA
Rotate Disks to Reach Farther: Design and Modeling of a Novel Reconfigurable Tendon Driven Manipulator
Aug 16, 2026Sabyasachi Dash, Yangkun Liu, Will Hunter +2Continuum Robot Design Tendon-Driven Actuation
Department of Industrial & Enterprise Systems Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign · Department of Mechanical Science & Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Capstan-driven Continuum Surgical Robot: Design, Modeling, and Perception
Aug 13, 2026Gang Zhang, Yufu Qiu, Junyan Yan +3Continuum Robot Control Robot State Estimation
Department of Mechanical and Automation Engineering and T Stone Robotics Institute, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong · School of Mechanical and Electronic Engineering, Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan 430070, China · state Key Laboratory of Intelligent Manufacturing Equipment and Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), Wuhan, China +1
Sliding Sensors: Configurable Confidence in State Estimation for Continuum Robots
Aug 5, 2026Ella Walsh, Spencer Teetaert, Eric Diller +2Robotics Robot State Estimation
University of Toronto Robotics Institute, Toronto, ON, Canada
Continuous and large-scale: ELEANOR, the soft architected arm inspired by the elephant trunk
Jul 8, 2026Giovanna A. Naselli, Anderson B. Nardin, Seonggun Joe +6Bioinspired Robotics Robotic Grasping
Soft BioRobotics Perception Laboratory, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, 16163 Genova, GE, Italy · Department of Autonomous Systems Engineering, Korea Aerospace University, Seoul, South Korea · Photocentric Ltd., Peterborough PE1 5XN, United Kingdom +2
U-Joint CAAMS: Experimental Evaluation of a Universal-Joint Continuum Manipulator for Aerial Manipulation
Jul 3, 2026Anuraj Uthayasooriyan, Musab Alibrahim, Krishna Manaswi Digumarti +2Aerial Robotics Continuum Robot Design
QUT Centre for Robotics · School of Electrical Engineering and Robotics · REF, QUT, Brisbane, QLD Australia 4000.
CoLI: A Reproducible Platform for Continuum Robot Learning via Monolithic 3D Printing and Isomorphic Teleoperation
Jun 18, 2026Ziyuan Tang, Chenxi Xiao*Robot Teleoperation Robotic Manipulation
School of Information Science and Technology at ShanghaiTech University, Shanghai, China
Neural Operators for Design-Space Surrogate Modeling of Tendon-Actuated Continuum Robots
May 18, 2026Branden Frieden, James M. Ferguson, Alan Kuntz +1Tendon-Driven Actuation Fourier Neural Operator
The Robotics Center and the Kahlert School of Computing at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA. · The Departments of Computer Science and Electrical and Computer Engineering at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, 37203, USA.
Design of Magnetic Continuum Robots with Tunable Force Response Using Rotational Ring Pairs
May 13, 2026Alex Sayres, Giovanni PittiglioContinuum Robot Control Continuum Robot Design
FuTURE Lab, Department of Robotics Engineering, Worcester Polytechnic Insitute (WPI), Worcester, MA 01605, USA
Distal-Stable Beam for Continuum Robots
Apr 1, 2026Ryouichi Saito, Takahiro Koide, Yuya Tanaka +3Continuum Robot Design Mechanism Design
Ryouichi Saito, Takahiro Koide, Yasutaka Nakashima, Motoji Yamamoto are with the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Kyushu University, 744 Motooka, Nishi-ku, Fukuoka, 819-0395, Japan. · Takahiro Koide, Ayato Kanada are with the Department of Graduate School of Informatics and Engineering at The University of Electro-Communications, 1-5-1 Chofugaoka, Chofu-shi, Tokyo, 182-8585
Tendon-Actuated Robots with a Tapered, Flexible Polymer Backbone: Design, Fabrication, and Modeling
Mar 19, 2026Harald Minde Hansen, Nandita Gallacher, Nicholas B. Andrews +3Continuum Robot Control Tendon-Driven Actuation
Mechatronics, Robotics and Operation Section, European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), Meyrin, Switzerland · Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA · Department of Engineering Cybernetics, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway

Oct 19, 2026J/K move · Enter open · S save

A Probabilistic, Rotation-Preserving Kernel Operator Surrogate for Continuum-Robot Design Spaces

Branden Frieden, Alan Kuntz, Varun Shankar

The Kahlert School of Computing at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA. · The Departments of Computer Science and Electrical and Computer Engineering at Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, 37203, USA.

Neural Surrogate Modeling Continuum Robot Design Operator Learning Gaussian Process Regression Continuum Robot Shape Estimation

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We develop an uncertainty-aware, operator-learning-based surrogate for tendon-driven continuum robots (TDCRs) that generalizes across robot design and actuation while predicting the complete equilibrium configuration. Our central idea is a nonstationary Gaussian-process (GP) kernel whose metric is learned by a shallow neural network from mechanics-aware design coordinates. The network learns how similarity changes across design space, while the resulting kernel defines the design-to-pose operator, its posterior uncertainty, and a criterion for sequential simulator acquisition. We represent backbone position and rotational strain with spatial kernels and reconstruct orientation directly on SO(3), preserving valid material frames and tendon geometry. We use ASkotch with Nystrom preconditioning for scalable kernel operator solves and a separate Nystrom approximation for posterior covariance. Experiments show that kernel-coverage acquisition reduces mean trajectory error by approximately 15% relative to IID sampling, while posterior variance increases for increasingly unsupported designs. Compared with prior neural-operator TDCR models, the method is 30-50% more accurate using approximately 5x fewer training designs while additionally providing posterior uncertainty estimates.