LEVA: A high-mobility logistic vehicle with legged suspension
Abstract
The autonomous transportation of materials over challenging terrain is a challenge with major economic implications and remains unsolved. This paper introduces LEVA, a high-payload, high-mobility robot designed for autonomous logistics across varied terrains, including those typical in agriculture, construction, and search and rescue operations. LEVA uniquely integrates an advanced legged suspension system using parallel kinematics. It is capable of traversing stairs using a rl controller, has steerable wheels, and includes a specialized box pickup mechanism that enables autonomous payload loading as well as precise and reliable cargo transportation of up to 85 kg across uneven surfaces, steps and inclines while maintaining a cot of as low as 0.15. Through extensive experimental validation, LEVA demonstrates its off-road capabilities and reliability regarding payload loading and transport.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.2503.10028,
title = {LEVA: A high-mobility logistic vehicle with legged suspension},
author = {Marco Arnold and Lukas Hildebrandt and Kaspar Janssen and Efe Ongan and Pascal Bürge and Ádám Gyula Gábriel and James Kennedy and Rishi Lolla and Quanisha Oppliger and Micha Schaaf and Joseph Church and Michael Fritsche and Victor Klemm and Turcan Tuna and Giorgio Valsecchi and Cedric Weibel and Michael Wüthrich and Marco Hutter},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2503.10028},
year = {2025}
}
Comments
Accepted for publication at the 2025 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA). This is the author's preprint version. 6 pages, 8 figures, 2 tables