An Adaptive External Torque Estimation Algorithm for Collision Detection in Robotic Arms

As robotic applications rapidly expand into increasingly complex and dynamic environments, greater emphasis is being placed on the intelligence and safety of human–robot collaboration at the task execution level. In shared human–robot workspaces, even the most precise motion planning cannot fully prevent collisions. To address this critical safety concern, we propose a variational Bayesian Kalman filtering-based external torque estimation algorithm that integrates the robot’s dynamic model while avoiding additional system complexity. We begin by reviewing the robot dynamics framework and the classical external torque estimation method based on generalized momentum. We then derive a Kalman filter-based approach for external torque estimation in robotic manipulators and analyze the adverse effects arising from mismatches in process noise covariance. Finally, we introduce a sliding window-based variational Bayesian Kalman filter, which dynamically estimates the current process noise covariance while simultaneously mitigating the accumulation of recursive errors.