Real-time Estimator of Actuator Control and Health (REACH) on an Eel-Inspired Soft Robot

[2608.14865] Real-time Estimator of Actuator Control and Health (REACH) on an Eel-Inspired Soft Robot Skip to main content Search Submit Donate Log in Search arXiv Press Enter to search · Advanced search Computer Science > Robotics arXiv:2608.14865 (cs) [Submitted on 14 Aug 2026] Title: Real-time Estimator of Actuator Control and Health (REACH) on an Eel-Inspired Soft Robot Authors: Zhangjingyi Jiang , Myungsun Park , Michael T. Tolley , Mark Campbell View a PDF of the paper titled Real-time Estimator of Actuator Control and Health (REACH) on an Eel-Inspired Soft Robot, by Zhangjingyi Jiang and 3 other authors View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract: An actuator health estimation algorithm for a soft swimming robot that can perform anguilliform swimming is developed. Due to harsh operational environments of underwater robots, and the common degradation of soft robot materials and actuators, accurate estimation of actuator functionality is necessary for robots to perform their missions as well as return to base in the event of actuator degradation and failure. Termed REACH (Real-time Estimator of Actuator Control and Health), the architecture employs a soft robot model, sigma point filter, and a formal statistical hypothesis test to adequately capture the nonlinearities and changes over time. The performance of REACH using three sensor types (GPS, IMU, and Bend Sensor) with one sensor on each actuator is compared, demonstrating that both bend sensor and IMU are adequate choices. Sensor quantity and placement are evaluated for IMU and bend sensor, showing two sensors are sufficient for IMU, whereas three sensors are needed for bend sensor. Three swimming gaits (linear swimming, wide turning, tight turning) are compared, demonstrating that REACH can successfully predict actuator health for all three gaits, with minimal differences in performance. A filter validation method shows the fault estimation algorithm is statistically consistent in finding the correct degradation. The approach is experimentally evaluated using bend sensor data collected from a fish robot, demonstrating that REACH can successfully estimate actuator health with noisy data and variations in manufacturing. Subjects: Robotics (cs.RO) Cite as: arXiv:2608.14865 [cs.RO] (or arXiv:2608.14865v1 [cs.RO] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2608.14865 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite Related DOI : https://doi.org/10.1109/robosoft63089.2025.11020927 Focus to learn more DOI(s) linking to related resources Submission history From: Zhangjingyi Jiang [ view email ] [v1] Fri, 14 Aug 2026 20:06:22 UTC (1,739 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View a PDF of the paper titled Real-time Estimator of Actuator Control and Health (REACH) on an Eel-Inspired Soft Robot, by Zhangjingyi Jiang and 3 other authors View PDF HTML (experimental) TeX Source view license Current browse context: cs.RO < prev | next > new | recent | 2026-08 Change to browse by: cs References & Citations NASA ADS Google Scholar Semantic Scholar export BibTeX citation Loading... BibTeX formatted citation × loading... 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