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

CardsList

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

  1. Flip Stunts on Bicycle Robots using Iterative Motion Imitation

    Mar 30, 2026Jeonghwan Kim, Shamel Fahmi, Seungeun Rho +2Robot Imitation LearningImitation Learning

    RAI Institute, Cambridge, MA, USA · Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, USA

  2. TerraSkipper: A Centimeter-Scale Robot for Multi-Terrain Skipping and Crawling

    Mar 29, 2026Shashwat Singh, Sheri Zhang, Spencer Matonis +1Robot LocomotionTerrain-Aware Robot Locomotion

    The Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA. · Department of Mechanical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA. · Edulis Therapeutics, Nashville, TN 37204.

  3. Design of an In-Pipe Robot with Contact-Angle-Guided Kinematic Decoupling for Crosstalk-Suppressed Locomotion

    Mar 28, 2026Min Yang, Yang Tian, Longchuang Li +2Robot LocomotionRobotic Inspection

    Robotics and Autonomous Systems Thrust, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou), Guangzhou 511453, China · Department of Engineering, Shinshu University, Nagano 380-8553, Japan · College of Information Science and Technology, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing 100029, China

  4. Quadrature Oscillation System for Coordinated Motion in Crawling Origami Robot

    Mar 24, 2026Sean Liu, Ankur Mehta, Wenzhong YanRoboticsRobot Locomotion

    Department of MAE, UCLA. · Department of EE, UCLA. · Department of MAE, University of California, Davis.

  5. Learning Multi-Agent Local Collision-Avoidance for Collaborative Carrying tasks with Coupled Quadrupedal Robots

    Mar 24, 2026Francesca Bray, Simone Tolomei, Andrei Cramariuc +2Multi-Robot Cargo TransportationMulti-Robot Systems

    Robotic Systems Lab, ETH Zurich. · Centro di Ricerca “Enrico Piaggio”, and Dipartimento di Ingegneria dell’Informazione, Universit`a di Pisa, Pisa, Italy.

  6. Hebbian Attractor Networks for Robot Locomotion

    Mar 23, 2026Alexander Dittrich, Fuda van Diggelen, Dario FloreanoHebbian LearningNeural Network Training Dynamics

    Laboratory of Intelligent Systems, EPFL, Switzerland

  7. PRIOR: Perceptive Learning for Humanoid Locomotion with Reference Gait Priors

    Mar 19, 2026Chenxi Han, Shilu He, Yi Cheng +2Humanoid Robot LocomotionRobot Locomotion

    Tsinghua University · ZERITH Robotics · Shanghai University

  8. REAL: Robust Extreme Agility via Spatio-Temporal Policy Learning and Physics-Guided Filtering

    Mar 18, 2026Jialong Liu, Dehan Shen, Yanbo Wen +2Robot Policy LearningRobot Locomotion

    PEAK-Lab, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Guangzhou), Guangzhou, 511453, China.

  9. Learning Whole-Body Control for a Salamander Robot

    Mar 17, 2026Mengze Tian, Qiyuan Fu, Chuanfang Ning +2Robot LocomotionWhole-Body Control

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

  10. A Pin-Array Structured Climbing Robot for Stable Locomotion on Steep Rocky Terrain

    Mar 17, 2026Keita Nagaoka, Kentaro Uno, Kazuya YoshidaRobot LocomotionRobotic Grasping

    The authors are with the Space Robotics Lab. (SRL) in Department of Aerospace Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, Tohoku University, Sendai 980-8579, Japan.

  11. 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.

  12. When Rolling Gets Weird: A Curved-Link Tensegrity Robot for Non-Intuitive Behavior

    Mar 17, 2026Lauren Ervin, Harish Bezawada, Vishesh VikasTensegrity RoboticsRobotics

    Agile Robotics Lab, University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487, USA

  13. HALO:Closing Sim-to-Real Gap for Heavy-loaded Humanoid Agile Motion Skills via Differentiable Simulation

    Mar 16, 2026Xingyi Wang, Chenyun Zhang, Weiji Xie +4Sim-to-Real TransferRL for Robotics

    Zhejiang University · Institute of Artificial Intelligence (TeleAI), China Telecom · Shanghai Jiao Tong University +1

  14. Load-Aware Locomotion Control for Humanoid Robots in Industrial Transportation Tasks

    Mar 15, 2026Lequn Fu, Yijun Zhong, Xiao Li +4Humanoid Loco-ManipulationHumanoid Robot Locomotion

    Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, China · Beijing Humanoid Robot Innovation Center, Beijing 100086, China

  15. Learning Energy-Efficient Air--Ground Actuation for Hybrid Robots on Stair-Like Terrain

    Mar 13, 2026Jiaxing Li, Ishaan Bhimwal, Wen Tian +5Robot LocomotionEnergy-Efficient Robot Locomotion

    Carnegie Mellon University, US · Technische Hochschule Würzburg-Schweinfurt, Germany · Nanyang Technological University, Singapore +1

  16. Robots that redesign themselves through kinematic self-destruction

    Mar 12, 2026Chen Yu, Sam KriegmanRoboticsRobot Morphology-Control Co-Design

    Northwestern University

  17. RL-Augmented MPC for Non-Gaited Legged and Hybrid Locomotion

    Mar 11, 2026Andrea Patrizi, Carlo Rizzardo, Arturo Laurenzi +3Robot LocomotionLegged Robotics

    All authors are with the Humanoids and Human-Centred Mechatronics (HHCM) lab, Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT), Via San Quirico 19d, 16163 Genova · Andrea Patrizi is also with the Department of Informatics, Bioengineering, Robotics and Systems Engineering, University of Genova, Via All’Opera Pia 13, 16145 Genova.

  18. Dynamic Modeling and Attitude Control of a Reaction-Wheel-Based Low-Gravity Bipedal Hopper

    Mar 11, 2026Shriram Hari, M Venkata Sai Nikhil, R Prasanth KumarRobot LocomotionLegged Robotics

    Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Hyderabad, Sangareddy, India

  19. Walking on Rough Terrain with Any Number of Legs

    Mar 10, 2026Zhuoyang Chen, Xinyuan Wang, Shai RevzenLegged RoboticsRobot Locomotion

    The authors are with the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA.

  20. 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

  21. A Robust Antenna Provides Tactile Feedback in a Multi-legged Robot

    Mar 8, 2026Zhaochen J. Xu, Juntao He, Delfin Aydan +5Legged RoboticsRobot Navigation

    All authors are with the Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA 30332, USA.

  22. Unifying Sidewinding and Rolling: A Wave-Based Framework for Self-Righting in Elongated Limbless and Multi-Legged Robots

    Mar 8, 2026Hangjun Liu, Jiarui Geng, Jinxuan Ding +7Legged RoboticsRobot Locomotion

  23. Failure Mechanisms and Risk Estimation for Legged Robot Locomotion on Granular Slopes

    Mar 6, 2026Xingjue Liao, Feifei QianGranular Terrain LocomotionRobot Locomotion

  24. Underactuated multimodal jumping robot for extraterrestrial exploration

    Mar 6, 2026Neil R. Wagner, Justin K. YimRobot LocomotionLegged Robotics

    Department of Mechanical Science and Engineering, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

  25. Improved hopping control on slopes for small robots using spring mass modeling

    Mar 6, 2026Heston Roberts, Pronoy Sarker, Sm Ashikul Islam +1Robot LocomotionRobotic Control

    Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Georgia Southern University, Statesboro, GA, USA

  26. Terrain characterization and locomotion adaptation in a small-scale lizard-inspired robot

    Mar 6, 2026Duncan Andrews, Landon Zimmerman, Evan Martin +2Bioinspired RoboticsRobotics

    Locomotion in Biology and Robotics (LiBR) Lab at Penn State University, University Park, PA 16802

  27. Characterization and Correlation of Robotic Snake Scale Friction and Locomotion Speed

    Mar 4, 2026Umit Sen, Andri Mahegan, Gina OlsonRobot LocomotionSoft Robotics

    Department of Mechanical and Industrial Engineering, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, USA.

  28. Passive Phase-Oriented Impedance Shaping for Rapid Acceleration in Soft Robotic Swimmers

    Mar 3, 2026Qimin Feng, Orion A. Roberts, Qiang ZhongRobot LocomotionUnderwater Robotics

    Department of Mechanical Engineering, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011, USA.

  29. Look Forward to Walk Backward: Efficient Terrain Memory for Backward Locomotion with Forward Vision

    Mar 3, 2026Shixin Luo, Songbo Li, Yuan Hao +4Robot LocomotionLegged Robotics

    The authors are with Institute of Cyber-Systems and Control, Zhejiang University, 310027, China. · The author is with College of Artificial Intelligence, Nankai University, 300350, China. · The author is with Hangzhou Public Library, 310016, China.

  30. CMoE: Contrastive Mixture of Experts for Motion Control and Terrain Adaptation of Humanoid Robots

    Mar 3, 2026Shihao Ma, Hongjin Chen, Zijun Xu +6Humanoid Robot LocomotionTerrain-Aware Robot Locomotion

    College of Intelligent Robotics and Advanced Manufacturing, Fudan University, Shanghai, China, 200433