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Related papers: ViTAL: Vision-Based Terrain-Aware Locomotion for L…

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Performing agile navigation with four-legged robots is a challenging task due to the highly dynamic motions, contacts with various parts of the robot, and the limited field of view of the perception sensors. In this paper, we propose a…

Robotics · Computer Science 2023-06-27 David Hoeller , Nikita Rudin , Dhionis Sako , Marco Hutter

Legged robots, particularly quadrupeds, offer promising navigation capabilities, especially in scenarios requiring traversal over diverse terrains and obstacle avoidance. This paper addresses the challenge of enabling legged robots to…

Robotics · Computer Science 2023-10-12 Jianwei Liu , Shirui Lyu , Denis Hadjivelichkov , Valerio Modugno , Dimitrios Kanoulas

Bipedal humanoid robots must precisely coordinate balance, timing, and contact decisions when locomoting on constrained footholds such as stepping stones, beams, and planks -- even minor errors can lead to catastrophic failure. Classical…

Robotics · Computer Science 2026-01-13 Min Dai , William D. Compton , Junheng Li , Lizhi Yang , Aaron D. Ames

The heavy-load legged robot has strong load carrying capacity and can adapt to various unstructured terrains. But the large weight results in higher requirements for motion stability and environmental perception ability. In order to utilize…

Robotics · Computer Science 2025-07-31 Ze Fu , Yinghui Li , Weizhong Guo

Taking inspiration from the natural gait transition mechanism of quadrupeds, devising a good gait transition strategy is important for quadruped robots to achieve energy-efficient locomotion on various terrains and velocities. While…

Robotics · Computer Science 2024-10-15 Daoxun Zhang , Xieyuanli Chen , Zhengyu Zhong , Ming Xu , Zhiqiang Zheng , Huimin Lu

Humanoid robots deployed in industrial environments are required to perform load-carrying transportation tasks that tightly couple locomotion and manipulation. However, achieving stable and robust locomotion under varying payloads and…

Robotics · Computer Science 2026-03-17 Lequn Fu , Yijun Zhong , Xiao Li , Yibin Liu , Zhiyuan Xu , Jian Tang , Shiqi Li

This work introduces a hierarchical strategy for terrain-aware bipedal locomotion that integrates reduced-dimensional perceptual representations to enhance reinforcement learning (RL)-based high-level (HL) policies for real-time gait…

Robotics · Computer Science 2025-12-16 Guillermo A. Castillo , Himanshu Lodha , Ayonga Hereid

We present a method for humanoid robot walking on partial footholds such as small stepping stones and rocks with sharp surfaces. Our algorithm does not rely on prior knowledge of the foothold, but information about an expected foothold can…

The ability to generate robust walking gaits on bipedal robots is key to their successful realization on hardware. To this end, this work extends the method of Hybrid Zero Dynamics (HZD) -- which traditionally only accounts for locomotive…

Robotics · Computer Science 2023-03-09 Maegan Tucker , Noel Csomay-Shanklin , Aaron D. Ames

Sim-to-real reinforcement learning (RL) for humanoid robots with high-gear ratio actuators remains challenging due to complex actuator dynamics and the absence of torque sensors. To address this, we propose a novel RL framework leveraging…

Robotics · Computer Science 2025-04-14 Sotaro Katayama , Yuta Koda , Norio Nagatsuka , Masaya Kinoshita

We tackle the problem of perceptive locomotion in dynamic environments. In this problem, a quadrupedal robot must exhibit robust and agile walking behaviors in response to environmental clutter and moving obstacles. We present a…

Robotics · Computer Science 2023-02-21 Mingyo Seo , Ryan Gupta , Yifeng Zhu , Alexy Skoutnev , Luis Sentis , Yuke Zhu

A distinctive feature of quadrupeds that is integral to their locomotion is the tail. Tails serve many purposes in biological systems including propulsion, counterbalance, and stabilization while walking, running, climbing, or jumping.…

Robotics · Computer Science 2023-04-12 Josh Buckley , Yasemin Ozkan-Aydin

Identifying the physical properties of the surrounding environment is essential for robotic locomotion and navigation to deal with non-geometric hazards, such as slippery and deformable terrains. It would be of great benefit for robots to…

Robotics · Computer Science 2024-08-30 Jiaqi Chen , Jonas Frey , Ruyi Zhou , Takahiro Miki , Georg Martius , Marco Hutter

Hybrid locomotion of wheeled-legged robots has recently attracted increasing attention due to their advantages of combining the agility of legged locomotion and the efficiency of wheeled motion. But along with expanded performance, the…

Robotics · Computer Science 2025-10-14 Jingyuan Sun , Hongyu Ji , Zihan Qu , Chaoran Wang , Mingyu Zhang

The ability of legged systems to traverse highly-constrained environments depends by and large on the performance of their motion and balance controllers. This paper presents a controller that excels in a scenario that most state-of-the-art…

Legged robots can traverse a wide variety of terrains, some of which may be challenging for wheeled robots, such as stairs or highly uneven surfaces. However, quadruped robots face stability challenges on slippery surfaces. This can be…

In contrast to quadruped robots that can navigate diverse terrains using a "blind" policy, humanoid robots require accurate perception for stable locomotion due to their high degrees of freedom and inherently unstable morphology. However,…

Robotics · Computer Science 2024-11-22 Junfeng Long , Junli Ren , Moji Shi , Zirui Wang , Tao Huang , Ping Luo , Jiangmiao Pang

Quadrupedal robots resemble the physical ability of legged animals to walk through unstructured terrains. However, designing a controller for quadrupedal robots poses a significant challenge due to their functional complexity and requires…

Robotics · Computer Science 2023-03-06 I Made Aswin Nahrendra , Byeongho Yu , Hyun Myung

Quadrupedal robots hold promising potential for applications in navigating cluttered environments with resilience akin to their animal counterparts. However, their floating base configuration makes them vulnerable to real-world…

Dynamic quadrupedal locomotion over rough terrains reveals remarkable progress over the last few decades. Small-scale quadruped robots are adequately flexible and adaptable to traverse uneven terrains along sagittal direction, such as…

Robotics · Computer Science 2021-10-27 Hongwu Zhu , Dong Wang , Nathan Boyd , Ziyi Zhou , Lecheng Ruan , Aidong Zhang , Ning Ding , Ye Zhao , Jianwen Luo