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Legged robots are increasingly being adopted in industries such as oil, gas, mining, nuclear, and agriculture. However, new challenges exist when moving into natural, less-structured environments, such as forestry applications. This paper…

Autonomous exploration is a fundamental capability that tightly integrates perception, planning, control, and motion execution. It plays a critical role in a wide range of applications, including indoor target search, mapping of extreme…

Robotics · Computer Science 2025-12-18 Kai Zhang , Shoubin Chen , Dong Li , Baiyang Zhang , Tao Huang , Zehao Wu , Jiasheng Chen , Bo Zhang

This project proposes a bioinspired multi-robot system using Distributed Optimization for efficient exploration and mapping of unknown environments. Each robot explores its environment and creates a map, which is afterwards put together to…

Robotics · Computer Science 2025-10-08 Roman Ibrahimov , Jannik Matthias Heinen

This work presents a 3D multi-robot exploration framework for a team of UGVs moving on uneven terrains. The framework was designed by casting the two-level coordination strategy presented in [1] into the context of multi-robot exploration.…

Robotics · Computer Science 2023-07-10 Luigi Freda , Tiago Novo , David Portugal , Rui P. Rocha

In recent years, robotic exploration has become increasingly important in planetary exploration. One area of particular interest for exploration is Martian lava tubes, which have several distinct features of interest. First, it is theorized…

Robotics · Computer Science 2023-10-24 Jørgen Anker Olsen , Kostas Alexis

Heterogeneous multi-robot systems are advantageous for operations in unknown environments because functionally specialised robots can gather environmental information, while others perform tasks. We define this decomposition as the…

Quadruped robots are increasingly used in various applications due to their high mobility and ability to operate in diverse terrains. However, most available quadruped robots are primarily focused on mobility without object manipulation…

The ability to efficiently and effectively explore planetary surfaces is currently limited by the capability of wheeled rovers to traverse challenging terrains, and by pre-programmed data acquisition plans with limited in-situ flexibility.…

High-speed legged navigation in discrete and geometrically complex environments is a challenging task because of the high-degree-of-freedom dynamics and long-horizon, nonconvex nature of the optimization problem. In this work, we propose a…

Robotics · Computer Science 2025-06-04 Hyeongjun Kim , Hyunsik Oh , Jeongsoo Park , Yunho Kim , Donghoon Youm , Moonkyu Jung , Minho Lee , Jemin Hwangbo

Autonomous exploration of multi-floor buildings remains challenging for ground robots because conventional 2D and 2.5D maps cannot represent overlapping traversable surfaces such as stairs, ramps, and multiple reachable elevations. This…

Robotics · Computer Science 2026-05-25 Zhiwen Zhu , Jiaqi Chen , Xiangyi Huang , Meiqi Hu , Boyu Zhou

Although autonomy has gained widespread usage in structured and controlled environments, robotic autonomy in unknown and off-road terrain remains a difficult problem. Extreme, off-road, and unstructured environments such as undeveloped…

This paper presents a distributed approach for exploring and triangulating an unknown region using a multi- robot system. The objective is to produce a covering of an unknown workspace by a fixed number of robots such that the covered…

Robotics · Computer Science 2014-02-04 SeoungKyou Lee , Aaron Becker , Sándor P. Fekete , Alexander Kröller , James McLurkin

Subterranean (SubT) environments have been a frontier for autonomous robotics, driven by the push for automation of mining operations and the interest in planetary exploration (Martian Lava Tubes). Due to the challenges involved in…

Robotics · Computer Science 2026-05-21 F. Labra Caso , A. Saradagi , S. Fredriksson , S. Nordström , A. Koval , G. Nikolakopoulos

It is challenging for the mobile robot to achieve autonomous and mapless navigation in the unknown environment with uneven terrain. In this study, we present a layered and systematic pipeline. At the local level, we maintain a tree…

Robotics · Computer Science 2025-01-07 Yinchuan Wang , Nianfei Du , Yongsen Qin , Xiang Zhang , Rui Song , Chaoqun Wang

Field robotics applications, such as search and rescue, involve robots operating in large, unknown areas. These environments present unique challenges that compound the difficulties faced by a robot operator. The use of multi-robot teams,…

The growing global demand for critical raw materials (CRMs) has highlighted the need to access difficult and hazardous environments such as abandoned underground mines. These sites pose significant challenges for conventional machinery and…

Systems and Control · Electrical Eng. & Systems 2025-09-23 Victor V. Puche , Kashish Verma , Matteo Fumagalli

Autonomous navigation in unknown environments is a fundamental challenge in robotics, particularly in coordinating ground and aerial robots to maximize exploration efficiency. This paper presents a novel approach that utilizes a…

Although wheeled robots have been predominant for planetary exploration, their geometry limits their capabilities when traveling over steep slopes, through rocky terrains, and in microgravity. Legged robots equipped with grippers are a…

Missions such as the Ingenuity helicopter have shown the advantages of using novel locomotion modes to increase the scientific return of planetary exploration missions. Legged robots can further expand the reach and capability of future…

Wheeled-legged robots have the potential for highly agile and versatile locomotion. The combination of legs and wheels might be a solution for any real-world application requiring rapid, and long-distance mobility skills on challenging…

Robotics · Computer Science 2020-02-07 Marko Bjelonic , Prajish K. Sankar , C. Dario Bellicoso , Heike Vallery , Marco Hutter