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. RK-MPC: Residual Koopman Model Predictive Control for Quadruped Locomotion in Offroad Environments

    Apr 5, 2026Sriram S. K. S. Narayanan, Umesh VaidyaModel Predictive ControlQuadruped Locomotion

    Department of Mechanical Engineering, Clemson University, Clemson, SC 29630, USA

  2. Learning-Based Fault Detection for Legged Robots in Remote Dynamic Environments

    Apr 3, 2026Abriana Stewart-Height, Seema Jahagirdar, Nikolai MatniRobot Failure DetectionLegged Robotics

    Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge MA 02139, USA · Department of Electrical and Systems Engineering, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, 19104, USA

  3. Learning Task-Invariant Properties via Dreamer: Enabling Efficient Policy Transfer for Quadruped Robots

    Apr 3, 2026Junyang Liang, Yuxuan Liu, Yabin Chang +5Sim-to-Real TransferRobot Policy Adaptation

    Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, China · Peng Cheng Laboratory, Shenzhen, China

  4. Learning Locomotion on Complex Terrain for Quadrupedal Robots with Foot Position Maps and Stability Rewards

    Apr 3, 2026Matthew Hwang, Yubin Liu, Ryo Hakoda +1Quadruped LocomotionTerrain-Aware Robot Locomotion

    University of Tokyo, Japan

  5. QuadFM: Foundational Text-Driven Quadruped Motion Dataset for Generation and Control

    Mar 25, 2026Li Gao, Fuzhi Yang, Jianhui Chen +4Robot Motion GenerationLegged Robotics

    AMAP, Alibaba Group

  6. MEVIUS2: Practical Open-Source Quadruped Robot with Sheet Metal Welding and Multimodal Perception

    Mar 23, 2026Kento Kawaharazuka, Keita Yoneda, Shintaro Inoue +3RoboticsLegged Robotics

    The authors are with the Department of Mechano-Informatics, Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 113-8656, Japan.

  7. ADMM-Based Distributed MPC with Control Barrier Functions for Safe Multi-Robot Quadrupedal Locomotion

    Mar 19, 2026Yicheng Zeng, Ruturaj S. Sambhus, Basit Muhammad Imran +3Model Predictive ControlMulti-Robot Motion Planning

    Department of Mechanical Engineering, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA · The University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso, TX 79968, USA

  8. Efficient and Versatile Quadrupedal Skating: Optimal Co-design via Reinforcement Learning and Bayesian Optimization

    Mar 19, 2026Hanwen Wang, Zhenlong Fang, Josiah Hanna +1Robot Morphology-Control Co-DesignQuadruped Locomotion

    Hanwen Wang, Zhenlong Fang, and Josiah Hanna are with the University of Wisconsin - Madison. · Xiaobin Xiong was with the University of Wisconsin - Madison, and now with the Shanghai Innovation Institute (SII).

  9. LIMBERO: A Limbed Climbing Exploration Robot Toward Traveling on Rocky Cliffs

    Mar 17, 2026Kentaro Uno, Masazumi Imai, Kazuki Takada +7Robot LocomotionQuadruped Locomotion

    The authors are with the Space Robotics Lab. (SRL) in Department of Aerospace Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, Tohoku University, Sendai 980-8579, Japan. · The author is with the National Institute of Applied Sciences of Toulouse, 31400 Toulouse, France.

  10. KiRAS: Keyframe Guided Self-Imitation for Robust and Adaptive Skill Learning in Quadruped Robots

    Mar 16, 2026Xiaoyi Wei, Peng Zhai, Jiaxin Tu +5Robot Skill LearningQuadruped Locomotion

    College of Intelligent Robotics and Advanced Manufacturing, Fudan University, China. · Power China Huadong Engineering Corporation Limited, China.

  11. TransCurriculum: Multi-Dimensional Curriculum Learning for Fast & Stable Locomotion

    Mar 14, 2026Prakhar Mishra, Amir Hossain Raj, Xuesu Xiao +1RL for Legged LocomotionCurriculum Learning

    University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA. · George Mason University, Fairfax, VA, USA.

  12. Prepare to Turn: Learning Anticipatory Maneuvering for Fast Sequential Quadrupedal Navigation

    Mar 13, 2026Zunzhi You, Yunke Wang, Haolan Guo +1Robot Policy LearningRobot Navigation

    All authors are with School of Computer Science, University of Sydney.

  13. Energy Prediction on Sloping Ground for Quadruped Robots

    Mar 12, 2026Mohamed Ounally, Cyrille Pierre, Johann LaconteEnergy-Efficient Robot LocomotionQuadruped Locomotion

    Université Clermont Auvergne, INRAE, UR TSCF, 63000, Clermont-Ferrand, France

  14. MiNI-Q: A Miniature, Wire-Free Quadruped with Unbounded, Independently Actuated Leg Joints

    Mar 12, 2026Daniel Koh, Suraj Shah, Yufeng Wu +1Legged RoboticsRobotics

    Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, UCLA, Los Angeles, CA 90095, USA.

  15. Towards Terrain-Aware Safe Locomotion for Quadrupedal Robots Using Proprioceptive Sensing

    Mar 10, 2026Peiyu Yang, Jiatao Ding, Wei Pan +2Terrain-Aware Robot LocomotionQuadruped Locomotion

    Dynamic Legged Systems, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT), Italy · Department of Industrial Engineering, University of Trento, Italy · Department of Computer Science, University of Manchester, UK +2

  16. Predictive Control with Indirect Adaptive Laws for Payload Transportation by Quadrupedal Robots

    Mar 9, 2026Leila Amanzadeh, Taizoon Chunawala, Randall T. Fawcett +2Adaptive MPCRobotics

    Department of Mechanical Engineering, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24061, USA · Exponent Inc., Phoenix, AZ 85027, USA

  17. Dual-Horizon Hybrid Internal Model for Low-Gravity Quadrupedal Jumping with Hardware-in-the-Loop Validation

    Mar 9, 2026Haozhe Xu, Yifei Zhao, Wenhao Feng +6Robot LocomotionQuadruped Locomotion

  18. Learning Quadruped Walking from Seconds of Demonstration

    Mar 7, 2026Ruipeng Zhang, Hongzhan Yu, Ya-Chien Chang +3Robot Imitation LearningData-Efficient Robot Learning

    University of California, San Diego

  19. Task-Level Decisions to Gait Level Control: A Hierarchical Policy Approach for Quadruped Navigation

    Mar 6, 2026Sijia Li, Haoyu Wang, Shenghai Yuan +2Quadruped Robot NavigationRobot Navigation

  20. Swimming Under Constraints: A Safe Reinforcement Learning Framework for Quadrupedal Bio-Inspired Propulsion

    Mar 4, 2026Xinyu Cui, Fei Han, Hang Xu +9Constrained RLUnderwater Robotics

    FSI lab, Westlake University, Hangzhou, 310030, China. · Institute of Automation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, China. · School of Artificial Intelligence, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China +3

  21. Learning Thermal-Aware Locomotion Policies for an Electrically-Actuated Quadruped Robot

    Mar 2, 2026Letian Qian, Yuhang Wan, Shuhan Wang +1Robot LocomotionQuadruped Locomotion

    State Key Laboratory of Intelligent Manufacturing Equipment and Technology, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan, China

  22. A Deployable Bio-inspired Compliant Leg Design for Enhanced Leaping in Quadruped Robots

    Mar 1, 2026Yiyang Chen, Yuxin Liu, Jinzheng Zhou +4Bioinspired RoboticsRobotics

    Department of Mechatronics and Robotics, Xi’an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, Suzhou 215123, China. · Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Champaign, Illinois, United States.

  23. Jumping Control for a Quadrupedal Wheeled-Legged Robot via NMPC and DE Optimization

    Feb 25, 2026Xuanqi Zeng, Lingwei Zhang, Linzhu Yue +4Robot LocomotionQuadruped Locomotion

    Department of Mechanical and Automation Engineering, The Chinese University of Hong Kong

  24. Dynamic Modeling and MPC for Locomotion of Tendon-Driven Soft Quadruped

    Feb 18, 2026Saumya Karan, Neerav Maram, Suraj Borate +1Quadruped LocomotionSoft Robotics

    IIT Gandhinagar, Department of Electrical Engineering, Gujarat, India · Sreenidhi Institute of Science and Technology, Department of Electronics and Computer Engineering, Telangana, India

  25. Learning Transferability: A Two-Stage Reinforcement Learning Approach for Enhancing Quadruped Robots' Performance in U-Shaped Stair Climbing

    Feb 16, 2026Baixiao Huang, Baiyu Huang, Yu HouRL for Legged LocomotionQuadruped Locomotion

    Independent Researcher, 7200 Bollinger Rd, Apt 516, CA 95129. · Independent Researcher, 16506 82nd Pl NE, Kenmore, WA, 98028. · Western New England University, Department of Construction Management, 1215 Wilbraham Rd, Springfield, MA 01119 (corresponding author).

  26. PUMA: Perception-driven Unified Foothold Prior for Mobility Augmented Quadruped Parkour

    Jan 22, 2026Liang Wang, Kanzhong Yao, Yang Liu +4Legged RoboticsTerrain-Aware Robot Locomotion

    Institute of Cyber-Systems and Control, Zhejiang University, 310027, China · Institute of Artificial Intelligence (TeleAI), China Telecom.

  27. Gain Tuning Is Not What You Need: Reward Gain Adaptation for Constrained Locomotion Learning

    Oct 12, 2025Arthicha Srisuchinnawong, Poramate ManoonpongConstrained RLRL for Legged Locomotion

    Vidyasirimedhi Institute of Science and Technology, Rayong, Thailand. · The University of Southern Denmark, Odense, Denmark.

  28. Sampling Strategies for Robust Universal Quadrupedal Locomotion Policies

    Oct 8, 2025David Rytz, Kim Tien Ly, Ioannis HavoutisDomain RandomizationSim-to-Real Transfer

    1Dynamic Robot Systems, Oxford Robotics Institute, University of Oxford

  29. SPARC: Spine with Prismatic And Revolute Compliance for Faster Quadrupedal Bounding

    Oct 2, 2025Yue Wang, Yanran XuLegged RoboticsImpedance Control

    School of Electronic and Computer Science, University of Southampton, United Kingdom

  30. GeCCo -- a Generalist Contact-Conditioned Policy for Loco-Manipulation Skills on Legged Robots

    Sep 22, 2025Vassil Atanassov, Wanming Yu, Siddhant Gangapurwala +2Robotic ControlLegged Robotics

    Dynamic Robot Systems Group, Oxford Robotics Institute, University of Oxford · Sony AI · Dyson Institute of Engineering and Technology