  Controlling the shape of deformable linear objects using robots and
constraints provided by environmental fixtures has diverse industrial
applications. In order to establish robust contacts with these fixtures,
accurate estimation of the contact state is essential for preventing and
rectifying potential anomalies. However, this task is challenging due to the
small sizes of fixtures, the requirement for real-time performances, and the
infinite degrees of freedom of the deformable linear objects. In this paper, we
propose a real-time approach for estimating both contact establishment and
subsequent changes by leveraging the dependency between the applied and
detected contact force on the deformable linear objects. We seamlessly
integrate this method into the robot control loop and achieve an adaptive shape
control framework which avoids, detects and corrects anomalies automatically.
Real-world experiments validate the robustness and effectiveness of our contact
estimation approach across various scenarios, significantly increasing the
success rate of shape control processes.
