Robot Locomotion

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Overview

Robot locomotion concerns the mechanisms and control strategies that let robots walk, run, hop, roll, climb, swim, or combine these modes. Researchers use physics-based models, gait planning, model predictive control, and reinforcement learning, often combining perception or tactile sensing with proprioception to adapt to terrain and contact. Work is tested in simulation and on physical robots, with benchmarks for stability, speed, energy use, obstacle traversal, and transfer to unfamiliar settings. A central challenge is making versatile learned controllers reliable in the real world, where uncertain contacts, deformable terrain, sensor errors, and hardware limits can undermine performance.

Latest papers

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233 papers31 papers in the last four weeks, down 16% on the four weeks before. 0.2% of all new papers.

  1. Neuromorphic Reinforcement Learning for Quadruped Locomotion Control on Uneven Terrain

    May 10, 2026Zhuangyu Han, Abhronil SenguptaEquilibrium PropagationTerrain-Aware Robot Locomotion

    School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Penn State University University Park, PA 16802

  2. Cycle-resolved Cephalopod-Inspired Pulsed-Jet Robot With High-Volume Expulsion and Drag-Reduced Gliding

    May 7, 2026Yiyuan Zhang, Anye Zhong, Junkai Chen +1Bioinspired RoboticsRobotics

    Department of Mechanical Engineering, College of Design and Engineering, National University of Singapore, Singapore · Advanced Robotics Centre, National University of Singapore, Singapore · Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology Centre, Singapore

  3. Right Model, Right Time: Real-Time Cascaded-Fidelity MPC for Bipedal Walking

    May 6, 2026Franek Stark, Felix Wiebe, Shubham Vyas +2Nonlinear MPCWhole-Body Control

    Robotics Innovation Center at the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DFKI), Bremen, Germany · University Bremen, Germany

  4. Height Control and Optimal Torque Planning for Jumping With Wheeled-Bipedal Robots

    May 5, 2026Yulun Zhuang, Yuan Xu, Binxin Huang +5Robotic ControlLegged Robotics

    Department of Mechanical and Energy Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, 518055, China · Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Biomimetic Robotics and Intelligent Systems and Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Human-Augmentation and Rehabilitation Robotics in Universities, Department of Mechanical and Energy Engineering, Southern University of Science and Technology, Shenzhen, 518055, China · Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, V6T1Z4, Canada

  5. Adaptive Gait Generation for Multi-Terrain Exoskeletons via Constrained Kernelized Movement Primitives

    May 4, 2026Edoardo Trombin, Miroljub Mihailovic, Matheus Henrique Ferreira Moura +3Upper-Limb ExoskeletonsRobot Locomotion

    Department of Information Engineering, University of Padua, 35131 Padua, Italy

  6. Learning to Race in Minutes: Infoprop Dyna on the Mini Wheelbot

    May 1, 2026Devdutt Subhasish, Henrik Hose, Sebastian TrimpeRobot Skill LearningAutonomous Racing

    Institute for Data Science in Mechanical Engineering, RWTH Aachen University, 52062 Aachen

  7. Task-Conditioned Uncertainty Costmaps for Legged Locomotion

    Apr 30, 2026Kartikeya Singh, Christo Aluckal, Romeo Orsolino +1Robot LocomotionEpistemic Uncertainty

    DRONES Lab, University at Buffalo, NY, USA · Ocado Technology, UK

  8. Bi-Level Optimization for Contact and Motion Planning in Rope-Assisted Legged Robots

    Apr 29, 2026Ruben Malacarne, Ioannis Tsikelis, Enrico Mingo Hoffman +1Legged RoboticsTrajectory Optimization

    The authors are with the Dipartimento di Ingegneria e Scienza dell’Informazione (DISI), University of Trento. · The authors are with Inria, Université de Lorraine, CNRS, 54000 Nancy, France.

  9. asRoBallet: Closing the Sim2Real Gap via Friction-Aware Reinforcement Learning for Underactuated Spherical Dynamics

    Apr 27, 2026Fang Wan, Guangyi Huang, Tianyu Wu +5Humanoid Robot LocomotionReinforcement Learning

    Southern University of Science and Technology · Shenzhen, China · The University of Hong Kong +4

  10. Unleashing the Agility of Wheeled-Legged Robots for High-Dynamic Reflexive Obstacle Evasion

    Apr 26, 2026Yongen Zhao, Zihao Xu, Wenzhi Lu +4Hierarchical RLRobot Locomotion

    Beijing Zhongguancun Academy, Beijing, China · School of Mechanical Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin, China · School of Computing, National University of Singapore, Singapore +1

  11. QuietWalk: Physics-Informed Reinforcement Learning for Ground Reaction Force-Aware Humanoid Locomotion Under Diverse Footwear

    Apr 26, 2026Hanze Hu, Luying Feng, Silu Chen +6Humanoid Robot LocomotionRobot Locomotion

    Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Ningbo 315201, China. · University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China. · Zhejiang Key Laboratory of Precision Actuation and Intelligent Robotics. +1

  12. False Feasibility in Variable Impedance MPC for Legged Locomotion

    Apr 24, 2026Vishal RameshImpedance ControlModel Predictive Control

  13. Dynamic Coupling and Indirect Control of Jointed Robots Rolling Atop A Moving Platform

    Apr 23, 2026Hamidreza Moradi, Scott David KellyRobotic ControlRobot Trajectory Tracking

    Department of Mechanical Engineering and Engineering Science, University of North Carolina at Charlotte, Charlotte, NC 28223 USA

  14. X2-N: A Transformable Wheel-legged Humanoid Robot with Dual-mode Locomotion and Manipulation

    Apr 23, 2026Yan Ning, Xingzhou Chen, Delong Li +6Legged RoboticsHumanoid Loco-Manipulation

    Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong, China. · X-lab Department, Agibot Innovation Company, Shanghai, China.

  15. Quadruped Parkour Learning: Sparsely Gated Mixture of Experts with Visual Input

    Apr 21, 2026Michael Ziegltrum, Jianhao Jiao, Tianhu Peng +2Robot Policy LearningSparse Mixture-of-Experts

    Robot Perception and Learning Lab, Intelligent Robotics, Department of Computer Science, University College London, Gower Street, WC1E 6BT, London, UK.

  16. Multi-Gait Learning for Humanoid Robots Using Reinforcement Learning with Selective Adversarial Motion Prior

    Apr 21, 2026Yuanye Wu, Keyi Wang, Linqi Ye +1Humanoid Robot LocomotionAdversarial Motion Prior

    School of Future Technology, Shanghai University, Shanghai, 200444, China · National and Local Co-Built Humanoid Robotics Innovation Center, 201203 Shanghai, China

  17. Locomotion of an Elastic Snake Robot via Natural Dynamics

    Apr 20, 2026Tristan Ehlert, Arne Sachtler, Annika Schmidt +2Dynamical SystemsEnergy-Efficient Robot Locomotion

    German Aerospace Center (DLR), Robotics and Mechatronics Center (RMC), Münchner Str. 20, 82234 Weßling, Germany · Technical University of Munich (TUM), Department of Computer Engineering; Boltzmannstraße 3, 85748 Garching, Germany

  18. Learning Whole-Body Humanoid Locomotion via Motion Generation and Motion Tracking

    Apr 19, 2026Zewei Zhang, Kehan Wen, Michael Xu +7Robot Trajectory TrackingHumanoid Robot Locomotion

    Robotic Systems Lab, ETH Zurich · EPFL · Simon Fraser University +2

  19. Model-Based Reinforcement Learning Exploits Passive Body Dynamics for High-Performance Biped Robot Locomotion

    Apr 16, 2026Tomoya Kamimura, Haruka Washiyama, Akihito SanoRobot LocomotionRL for Legged Locomotion

    Department of Mechanical Science and Bioengineering, Graduate School of Engineering and Science, The University of Osaka, Toyonaka, Japan. · Department of ElectricalTechnology,and MechanicalAichi,Engineering,Japan. Nagoya Institute of

  20. CART: Context-Aware Terrain Adaptation using Temporal Sequence Selection for Legged Robots

    Apr 15, 2026Kartikeya Singh, Youngjin Kim, Yash Turkar +1Terrain-Aware Robot LocomotionRobot Locomotion

    DRONES LAB, University at Buffalo, NY, USA

  21. Stability Principle Underlying Passive Dynamic Walking of Rimless Wheel

    Apr 15, 2026Fumihiko AsanoRobot LocomotionLyapunov Stability

    School of Information Science, Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, 1-1 Asahidai, Nomi, Ishikawa 923-1292, Japan

  22. Evolving the Complete Muscle: Efficient Morphology-Control Co-design for Musculoskeletal Locomotion

    Apr 14, 2026Lidong Sun, Wentao Zhao, Ye Wang +2Robot Morphology-Control Co-DesignRobotics

    Naval University of Engineering, Wuhan 430033, China · Department of Computer Science and Technology, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China · Department of Mechanical Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, China

  23. Asymptotically Stable Gait Generation and Instantaneous Walkability Determination for Planar Almost Linear Biped with Knees

    Apr 14, 2026Fumihiko Asano, Ning Lei, Taiki SedoguchiRobot LocomotionHumanoid Robot Locomotion

    Graduate School of Advanced Science and Technology, Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, 1-1 Asahidai, Nomi, Ishikawa 923-1292, Japan

  24. Dynamic Modeling and Robust Gait Optimization of a Compliant Worm Robot

    Apr 13, 2026Xinyu Zhou, Yu Mei, Faith Thomson +3Robot LocomotionEnergy-Efficient Robot Locomotion

    Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI 48824 USA

  25. A Foot Resistive Force Model for Legged Locomotion on Muddy Terrains

    Apr 13, 2026Xunjie Chen, Liuyin Wang, Xinyan Huang +3Robot LocomotionTerrain-Aware Robot Locomotion

    Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Rutgers University, Piscataway, NJ 08854 USA · Department of Electrical and Biomedical Engineering, University of Nevada, Reno, NV 89557 USA

  26. Identifying and Exploiting Structure in Robot Co-Design

    Apr 13, 2026Apoorv Vaish, Oliver BrockRobot Morphology-Control Co-DesignRobotic Manipulation

    Robotics and Biology Laboratory, Technische Universität Berlin · Science of Intelligence (SCIoI), Cluster of Excellence, Berlin · Robotics Institute Germany (RIG)

  27. Modeling, Analysis and Activation of Planar Viscoelastically-combined Rimless Wheels

    Apr 13, 2026Fumihiko Asano, Yuxuan Xiang, Yanqiu Zheng +1Robot LocomotionLegged Robotics

    School of Information Science, Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, 1-1 Asahidai, Nomi, Ishikawa 923-1292, Japan

  28. GPU-Accelerated Continuous-Time Successive Convexification for Contact-Implicit Legged Locomotion

    Apr 11, 2026Samuel C. Buckner, Purnanand ElangoTrajectory OptimizationRobot Locomotion

    Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195. · Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories, Cambridge, MA 02139.

  29. CReF: Cross-modal and Recurrent Fusion for Depth-conditioned Humanoid Locomotion

    Mar 31, 2026Yuan Hao, Ruiqi Yu, Shixin Luo +3Humanoid Robot LocomotionRobot Locomotion

    The authors are with Institute of Cyber-Systems and Control, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, China. · Guoteng Zhang is with the School of Control Science and Engineering, Shandong University, Jinan 250061, China.

  30. A Foldable and Agile Soft Electromagnetic Robot for Multimodal Navigation in Confined and Unstructured Environments

    Mar 30, 2026Zhihao Lv, Xiaoyong Zhang, Mengfan Zhang +5Robot LocomotionSoft Robotics

    State Key Laboratory of Fluid Power and Mechatronic Systems, Key Laboratory of Soft Machines and Smart Devices of Zhejiang Province, Center for X-mechanics, Department of Engineering Mechanics, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, People’s Republic of China.