# ContactFlowFilter: An Online Contact Estimation Method for Robotic Arms Based on Flow Matching and Particle Filtering

- Source: arXiv cs.RO
- Published: 2026-10-22T04:00:00.000Z
- RoboHot: https://robohot.news/en/items/ax4po7xwqakyyqx73k3nki4a3
- Original: https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.29568

## Summary

The paper proposes ContactFlowFilter for estimating the number, locations, and force vectors of active contacts on a robotic arm equipped only with joint torque sensors and a base force/torque sensor. The method uses a flow matching model as an auxiliary proposal distribution for a particle filter, leveraging the particle filter's recursive structure to capture temporal dependencies while tracking multimodal beliefs and detecting contact addition and removal events.