Quadruped Locomotion

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Overview

Quadruped locomotion research develops ways for four-legged robots to walk, run, jump, climb, and move through unfamiliar environments. Common approaches include reinforcement and imitation learning, model-predictive and whole-body control, and perception systems that use cameras, depth, LiDAR, or foot sensors to guide movement. Researchers also study hardware such as compliant feet and active spines, alongside sim-to-real transfer, adaptation to payloads or damage, and safety and energy constraints. Policies are increasingly tested on real robots and challenging terrain, but reliable transfer remains difficult when contact, sensing, or robot dynamics differ from training conditions.

Latest papers

CardsList

121 papers22 papers in the last four weeks, up 29% on the four weeks before. 0.1% of all new papers.

  1. A Trainable CPG Framework for Quadruped Locomotion

    Oct 27, 2026Xiyan Liu, Yide Liu, Guoyong Mao +1Robot LocomotionQuadruped Locomotion

    The authors are with the State Key Laboratory of Fluid Power & Mechatronic Systems, Key Laboratory of Soft Machines and Smart Devices of Zhejiang Province, Center for X-Mechanics, Department of Engineering Mechanics, Zhejiang University, 38 Zheda Road, Hangzhou 310027, China.

  2. End-to-End Reinforcement Learning for Quadrupedal Jumping in Lunar Gravity

    Oct 21, 2026Levin Müller, Oliver Fischer, Marco Trentini +2RoboticsRL for Legged Locomotion

    ETH Zurich, Robotics Systems Lab; Leonhardstrasse 21, 8092 Zurich, Switzerland.

  3. Design and Control of a Multimodal Legged-Aerial Robot Through Separate Control Contraction Metrics

    Oct 19, 2026Kaushik Venkatesh Krishnamurthy, Eric Sihite, Alireza Ramezani +1Robot LocomotionQuadruped Locomotion

    Authors are with the Silicon Synapse Labs, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Northeastern University, Boston, USA. · Authors are with Center for Autonomus Systems and Technologies, Caltech, Pasadena, CA.

  4. Anticipatory Gait Switching for Quadrupeds via Look-Ahead MDP Planning

    Oct 17, 2026Kelvin Aladum, Justin Peel, Nisar AhmedLegged RoboticsQuadruped Locomotion

  5. Learning Structured Locomotion References for Optimization-Based Whole-Body Control

    Oct 17, 2026Ömer Tarık Banuş, Uluç Saranlı, M. Mert AnkaralıRobot LocomotionQuadruped Locomotion

    Center for Robotics and Artificial Intelligence (ROMER), Middle East Technical University (METU), 06800 Ankara, Türkiye. · Defense Systems Technologies Division, ASELSAN Inc., 06200 Ankara, Türkiye. · Department of Computer Engineering, METU, 06800 Ankara, Türkiye. +1

  6. FCTS: Failure-Guided Curriculum Tree Search Over Generated Terrain for Legged Parkour

    Oct 15, 2026Narayanan Palghat Parameswaran, Dong-Ki Kim, Jay Patrikar +4Legged RoboticsCurriculum Learning

    Carnegie Mellon University · FieldAI

  7. From Pixels to Executable Physics: Behavior-Grounded World Models for Embodied Action Consequence Prediction

    Oct 13, 2026Ruo Chen, Jiahua Pang, Yingjie Niu +4Action-Conditioned World ModelsEmbodied World Models

    DEEP Robotics · Zhejiang University · Beijing Institute of Technology +3

  8. CopyQuad: Quadrupedal Skill Transfer from a Single Side-View Video Without a Depth Model

    Oct 12, 2026Mohamad H. Danesh, Raina Hu, Mengxue Xu +1Robot Imitation LearningQuadruped Locomotion

    McGill University · Mila – Quebec AI Institute

  9. PointWalker: Mapless Quadruped Locomotion Directly From Raw LiDAR Point Clouds

    Oct 11, 2026Sicen Li, Zhen Chu, Chao Li +3Quadruped LocomotionLegged Robotics

    College of Control Science and Engineering, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China · Yunshenchu Technology Co., Ltd., Hangzhou, China · Hangzhou Public Library, Hangzhou, China +1

  10. Beyond Fixed Visual History: Learning Motion-Adaptive Temporal Receptive Fields for Complex-Terrain Quadruped Locomotion

    Oct 10, 2026Hao Zhang, Yuping Yan, Yitian Hong +5Quadruped LocomotionVision-Based Robot Control

    Westlake University, Hangzhou, China. · East China University of Science and Technology, Shanghai, China.

  11. Toward Lunar Legged Robots: Field Deployment Lessons at LUNA

    Oct 8, 2026Adrian Fuhrer, Joseph Church, Oliver Fischer +6RoboticsLegged Robotics

    ETH Zurich, Robotics Systems Lab; Leonhardstrasse 21, 8092 Zurich, Switzerland

  12. Walking on Roofs: Exploring the Potential of Walking Robots for Construction Work on Roofs

    Oct 8, 2026Bjoern-Felix Dettmar, Arne RoennauQuadruped LocomotionRobotic Construction

    Machine Intelligence and Robotics Lab at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), Germany

  13. Higher-Order Morphology Priors for Quadruped Reinforcement Learning Under Actuator Degradation

    Oct 7, 2026Derek You, Zafir Shamsi, Keqin Wang +1Higher-Order GNNsRL for Legged Locomotion

    Edison Academy Magnet School. · South Brunswick High School. Work done during the Princeton Laboratory Learning Program. · Princeton University.

  14. Energy-Efficient Gait Adaptation via Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning for Quadrupedal Locomotion Across Diverse Terrains

    Oct 7, 2026Ammar Issa, Anubhav Singh, Anton Tsaritsin +1Legged RoboticsEnergy-Efficient Robot Locomotion

    Faculty of Control Systems and Robotics, ITMO University, and the Biomechatronics and Energy-Efficient Robotics Lab (BE2R), St. Petersburg, Russia

  15. Feeling Through the Load: Compliant Quadruped Locomotion under Payload Interactions

    Oct 6, 2026Shaunak A. Mehta, Mayank Mishra, Prajit KrisshnaKumar +2Robotic ControlCompliant Robot Control

    Fujitsu Research of America, Pittsburgh, PA, 15213.

  16. Model-Based Geometry-Aware Generative Optimization for Constrained Locomotion Planning

    Oct 6, 2026Zhilin He, Xinyuan Wang, Changliu LiuConstrained Generative ModelingConstrained Motion Planning

    Carnegie Mellon University · University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

  17. RACER: Residual-Adaptive Closed-Loop Estimation for Sampling-Based Planning in Wheeled-Quadruped Racing

    Oct 5, 2026Yuxiang Liu, Marla Eisman, Lizhi Yang +2Residual Dynamics LearningSim-to-Real Transfer

    University of California, Berkeley, CA, USA. · California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA.

  18. Transporting Unsecured Stacked Payloads with a Quadrupedal Robot via Multi-Objective Reinforcement Learning

    Oct 5, 2026Nobuo Namura, Masayuki Hiromoto, Kento Uemura +2Multi-Objective Reinforcement LearningRobot Policy Adaptation

    Fujitsu Limited, Kawasaki, Japan

  19. TACET: Context-Appropriate Acoustic-Social Navigation for Quadrupeds

    Oct 2, 2026Sungsan Park, Young-Sik Shin, Sanghyun KimRobot NavigationSocial Robot Navigation

    Department of Mechanical Engineering, Kyung Hee University, Yongin, 17104, Republic of Korea. · School of Mechanical Engineering, Kyungpook National University, Daegu, 41566, Republic of Korea.

  20. Around the World: Unified Learned Locomotion on a 270 g Continuous-Rotation Quadruped

    Oct 2, 2026Arturo Flores Alvarez, Nathan Lintu, Dennis HongLegged RoboticsQuadruped Locomotion

    Robotics and Mechanisms Laboratory (RoMeLa), University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)

  21. PROMO: Preference-conditioned Multi-Objective Reinforcement Learning for Quadrupedal Robots

    Oct 1, 2026Amr Mousa, Rifny Rachman, Neil Karavis +2Multi-Objective Reinforcement LearningEnergy-Efficient Robot Locomotion

    The University of Manchester, United Kingdom · BAE Systems, United Kingdom · University of Warwick, United Kingdom

  22. Experience-Driven Continual Learning of Terrain Traversability for Quadruped Robots

    Sep 30, 2026Luca Bricarello, João Carlos Virgolino Soares, Alberto Sanchez-Delgado +2Continual Robot LearningSafe Robot Navigation

    Dynamic Legged Systems Lab, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia, Genoa, Italy. · Universit`a degli Studi di Genova, Genoa, Italy.

  23. Proprioceptive Force Estimation for Quadruped Locomotion and Human-Robot Interaction

    Sep 28, 2026Run Wang, Xu Yang, Alapati Tuerxun +1Robotic ControlHuman-Robot Interaction

    Department of Automation, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

  24. GAUGE: Planner-Conditioned Active Calibration of Opaque Quadruped Velocity Interfaces

    Sep 26, 2026Tianhao Zang, Zihan Liu, Shanze Wang +4System IdentificationQuadruped Locomotion

    College of Information Science and Technology, Eastern Institute of Technology, Ningbo, P. R. China. · University of Maryland, USA. · School of Computer Science, University of Nottingham, UK. +3

  25. Quadruped Obstacle Avoidance and Footstep Planning with Distributed Low-cost Time-of-Flight Sensors

    Sep 25, 2026Giammarco Caroleo, Timothée Mahamoodally, Matteo Manzardo +6Quadruped LocomotionRobot Collision Avoidance

    Oxford Robotics Institute, University of Oxford, UK. · Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy. · University of Edinburgh, UK. +1

  26. DAWN: Noise-Robust Quadruped Parkour via Depth-Denoising World Models

    Sep 24, 2026Yohan Choi, Min-Jun Kim, Jin-Sung Kim +2World Models for RoboticsQuadruped Locomotion

    Convergence Engineering, Korea University of Technology and Education, Cheonan 31253, South Korea · School of Electrical, Electronics and Communication Engineering, Korea University of Technology and Education, Cheonan, 31253, South Korea

  27. SG-CPG: Severity-Gated Central Pattern Generators for Adaptive Quadruped Locomotion under Continuous Actuator Degradation

    Sep 22, 2026Adarsh Kumar Kosta, Kaushik RoyDynamical SystemsFault-Tolerant Control

    Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47906, USA

  28. MimicAgent: Quadruped Skills via Prompt-to-Trajectory Generation

    Sep 21, 2026Lucky Kant Nayak, Narayanan Palghat Parameswaran, Neehar Peri +1Reinforcement LearningTrajectory Generation

    Carnegie Mellon University

  29. Duty Factor Predicts Robust Constrained Quadrupedal Locomotion Across Gait Types

    Sep 18, 2026James Zhu, David Ologan, George Ortiz +5Compliant Legged LocomotionQuadruped Locomotion

    Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL, USA · Department of Mechanical Engineering, 3 Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

  30. OmniMimic: Dynamics-completed Motion Augmentation for Multi-style Omnidirectional Quadruped Locomotion

    Sep 17, 2026Sheng Wu, Guoqiang Zhao, Zhe Yang +7Robot Imitation LearningQuadruped Locomotion

    School of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Hunan University, China · China Mobile Group Hunan Company Ltd., China · National Engineering Research Center of Robot Visual Perception and Control Technology, Hunan University, China