Stabilizing 3D Continuum-Arm Rollouts via Equilibrium Anchoring and Feature-Lifted Residual Learning


Ahsan Tanveer, Rahdar Hussain Afridi, Waqar Hussain Afridi, Feitian Zhang, Guangming Xie

Paper ID 106

Session Control & Dynamics

Poster session details TBA

Abstract: Multi-step motion prediction for continuum robots is difficult, especially under actuation distribution shift, where error accumulation can distort the predicted steady response and destabilize rollouts. This paper introduces a hybrid equilibrium-anchored plus residual-learning framework for a tendon-driven 3D continuum arm that makes steady behavior explicit. An equilibrium prior is learned from inexpensive static equilibrium data and used in a contractive update that continuously pulls predictions toward the equilibrium estimate, improving rollout stability. A lightweight feature-lifted residual model, linear in parameters, learns the remaining one-step mismatch from dynamic trajectory data, recovering transient dynamics. The approach is validated on 200-step rollouts under actuation that is stronger and faster than in training. The Hybrid reduces backbone position RMSE by 26% and tip position RMSE by 27%, producing consistent accuracy gains over prior-only and residual-only predictors while remaining stable across all tested trajectories. The same proposed model also improves robustness on standard nonlinear benchmarks against a combined Koopman baseline under matched evaluation protocols.