Design, Locomotion, and Control of Amphibious Robots: Recent Advances

Yi Jin; Chang Liu; Roger D. Quinn; Robert J. Wood; C. Chase Cao

cs.ROFeb 22, 2026

Design, Locomotion, and Control of Amphibious Robots: Recent Advances

Authors: Yi Jin, Chang Liu, Roger D. Quinn, Robert J. Wood, C. Chase Cao

Organizations: Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH 44106, USA · John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard University, Allston, MA, 02134, USA · Department of Electrical, Computer and Systems Engineering, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH 44106, USA · Advanced Platform Technology ·

Abstract

Amphibious robots, operating seamlessly across land and water, are advancing applications in conservation, disaster response, and defense. Their performance depends on locomotion mechanisms, actuation technologies, and sensor-control integration. This review highlights recent progress in these areas, examining movement strategies, material-based actuators, and control systems for autonomy and adaptability. Challenges and opportunities are outlined to guide future research toward more efficient, resilient, and multifunctional amphibious robots.

Robotics

Robotics studies the design and control of machines that perceive, move, and act in physical environments.

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Mar 17, 2026J/K move · Enter open · S save

Learning Whole-Body Control for a Salamander Robot

Mengze Tian, Qiyuan Fu, Chuanfang Ning, Javier Jia Jie Pey+1

Biorobotics Laboratory (BIOROB), École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne 1015, Switzerland

Robot Locomotion Whole-Body Control RL for Legged Locomotion Terrain-Aware Robot Locomotion

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Amphibious legged robots inspired by salamanders are promising in applications in complex amphibious environments. However, despite the significant success of training controllers that achieve diverse locomotion behaviors in conventional quadrupedal robots, most salamander robots relied on central-pattern-generator (CPG)-based and model-based coordination strategies for locomotion control. Learning unified joint-level whole-body control that reliably transfers from simulation to highly articulated physical salamander robots remains relatively underexplored. In addition, few legged robots have tried learning-based controllers in amphibious environments. In this work, we employ Reinforcement Learning to map proprioceptive observations and commanded velocities to joint-level actions, allowing coordinated locomotor behaviors to emerge. To deploy these policies on hardware, we adopt a system-level real-to-sim matching and sim-to-real transfer strategy. The learned controller achieves stable and coordinated walking on both flat and uneven terrains in the real world. Beyond terrestrial locomotion, the framework enables transitions between walking and swimming in simulation, highlighting a phenomenon of interest for understanding locomotion across distinct physical modes.

Abstract

Robotics

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