Apr 22, 2026 · cs.ROJ/K move · Enter open · S save
I-Chia Chang, Xinyan Huang, Tzu-Yuan Lin, Sangli Teng+4
School of Mechanical Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47906 USA · Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ 08854 USA · Department of Robotics, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109 USA
Legged robots have demonstrated remarkable agility on rigid, stationary ground, but their locomotion reliability remains limited in non-inertial environments, where the supporting ground moves, tilts, or accelerates. Such conditions arise in ground transportation, maritime platforms, and aerospace settings, and they introduce persistent time-varying disturbances that break the stationary-ground assumptions underlying conventional legged locomotion. This survey reviews the state of the art in modeling, state estimation, and control for legged robots in non-inertial environments. We summarize representative application domains and motion characteristics, analyze the root causes of locomotion performance degradation, and review existing methods together with their key assumptions and limitations. We further identify open problems in robot-environment coupling, observability, robustness, and experimental validation, and discuss future directions in autonomy, system-level design, bio-inspired strategies, safety, and testing. The survey aims to clarify the technical foundations of this emerging area and support the development of reliable legged robots for real-world dynamic environments.