Robot Morphology-Control Co-Design

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Overview

Robot morphology-control co-design studies how a robot’s shape, materials, actuators, and control policy can be designed together, since each constrains what the others can achieve. Common approaches include evolutionary and Bayesian search, bilevel reinforcement learning, and differentiable simulation or learned latent spaces that make design exploration more efficient. These methods are used across soft and legged robots, hands and tools, and aerial systems, with evaluations ranging from simulated locomotion benchmarks to fabricated robots and real-world tasks. A central challenge is finding designs that remain robust and manufacturable beyond their training conditions, while making comparisons fair across different controllers, search budgets, and benchmarks.

Latest papers

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60 papers11 papers in the last four weeks, up 10% on the four weeks before. 0.1% of all new papers.

  1. A Bi-level Co-design Framework for Lunar Monoped with 2D Jump and Landing Control

    Oct 27, 2026Sanjay Ramkumar, Suraj KumarRoboticsLegged Robotics

    Dept. of Aerospace Engineering, Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology. · Controls and Digital Area, U R Rao Satellite Center.

  2. Make it Walk: Computational Design of LEGO Walkers

    Oct 21, 2026Siqi Li, Fancheng Gao, Chi-Wing Fu +1Robot LocomotionLegged Robotics

    Singapore University of Technology and Design · The Chinese University of Hong Kong

  3. Rollbot 2: Agile Locomotion by a Single-Actuator Spherical Robot

    Oct 16, 2026Jingxian Wang*, Chen Yu*, Sam Kriegman +1Robot LocomotionRobot Navigation

    Northwestern University, Evanston, IL 60208 USA.

  4. PACT: Posture-Aligned Co-Design Technique for Hand Configuration and Retargeting in Multi-Finger Imitation Learning

    Oct 13, 2026Koyo Sasazaki, Satoshi Funabashi, Pranav Ponnivalavan +3Robotic Hand DesignRobot Morphology-Control Co-Design

    All authors are with Waseda University, Okubo 3-4-1, Shinjuku, Tokyo 169-8555, Japan

  5. Enhancing Robotic Perception and Adaptability through Sensor Fusion and Origami-Inspired Designs

    Oct 7, 2026Namai Chandra, Jaison Jose, Kavi Arya +1Robotic PerceptionMobile Robotics

    IIT Madras · e-Yantra, IIT Bombay

  6. LACE-CRAFT: Robot Co-Design with Actor Inheritance and Blackboard Collaboration

    Oct 7, 2026Yuhan Wen, Jiawei Wang, Qixuan Zhang +3Robot Morphology-Control Co-DesignRobot Policy Adaptation

    Deemos Corporation · ShanghaiTech University · University of Cambridge +2

  7. Beyond Task Reward: A Controller-Restriction Protocol for Evaluating Embodiment-Dependent Competence

    Oct 6, 2026Siyuan ZhangRobotic ControlRobot Morphology-Control Co-Design

    Robotics Department, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

  8. Co-design Gym: A Unified Benchmark for Embodiment-Policy Co-optimization

    Oct 1, 2026Aviraj Newatia, Yordan Tsvetkov, Leonard Pleiss +2Robot Morphology-Control Co-DesignRL Benchmarks

    University of Cambridge · Technical University of Munich · Carnegie Mellon University +1

  9. Tool-Policy Co-Design for Powder Weighing in Laboratory Automation

    Sep 30, 2026Nikola Radulov, Xin Yang, Kevin S. Luck +1Robot Morphology-Control Co-DesignRobotic Tool Use

    School of Computer Science & Informatics, University of Liverpool, UK. · Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Faculty of Science, Netherlands. · Department of Chemistry, University of Liverpool, UK.

  10. Residual Wrench Certification and Margin-Aware Control Synthesis for Aerial Physical Interaction

    Sep 30, 2026Abhimanyu Khadga, Abhinav Sinha, Shashi Ranjan KumarRobot Morphology-Control Co-DesignRobust Control

    Guidance, Autonomy, Learning, and Control for Intelligent Systems (GALACxIS) Lab, Department of Aerospace Engineering, University of Cincinnati, OH 45221, USA · Intelligent Systems and Control (ISaC) Lab, Department of Aerospace Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, Powai, Mumbai 400076, India

  11. Draft: A Parametric Tool for Robot Design Exploration

    Sep 29, 2026David Nguyen, Marcelo Coelho, Sangbae KimRobot Morphology-Control Co-DesignRobotics Simulation

    Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology · Department of Architecture, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

  12. Robot Tool Design from Scratch via Behavior-Aware Hierarchical Optimization

    Sep 28, 2026Yinghan Chen, Xiyao Tian, Yizan Dai +2Robot Morphology-Control Co-DesignRobotics

    Institute for AI, Peking University. · School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences, Peking University. · Yuanpei College, Peking University. +4

  13. Evolving Dexterous Robots from Scratch

    Sep 27, 2026Zihan Guo, Shuzhe Zhang, Muhan Li +2Robotic ManipulationEvolutionary Robotics

    Northwestern University

  14. Bridging Body and Brain: Gene-Driven Morphology--Control Co-Design

    Sep 25, 2026Fu Feng, Ruixiao Shi, Yucheng Xie +2Robot Morphology-Control Co-DesignLatent Space Optimization

    School of Computer Science and Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing, China · Key Laboratory of New Generation Artificial Intelligence Technology and Its Interdisciplinary Applications (Southeast University), Ministry of Education, China

  15. Co-design of trajectory and morphology for a vertical jump-climbing robot

    Sep 25, 2026Christopher Y. Xu, Elliot W. HawkesRobot LocomotionRobot Morphology-Control Co-Design

    Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of California Santa Barbara.

  16. MOCHA: Multi-Objective Co-Design using Hypernetwork Architectures

    Sep 24, 2026Varun Madabushi, Neil Janwani, Maegan TuckerRobot Morphology-Control Co-DesignMulti-Objective Reinforcement Learning

    Dynamic Mobility Lab at Georgia Tech, Atlanta, U.S.

  17. AeRSoM: An Aerial Rigid-Soft Integrated Manipulator for Contact-Rich Manipulation

    Sep 22, 2026Jiacheng Liang, Hang Zhong, Yaonan Wang +5Aerial ManipulationContact-Rich Robotic Manipulation

    School of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Hunan University, Changsha 410082, China and also with the National Engineering Research Center for Robot Visual Perception and Control Technology, Changsha 410082, China · School of Mechanical Engineering and Automation, Beihang University, Beijing 100191, China

  18. Tilt as a Certified Resource: Preserving Motor Wrench-Rate Authority on Articulated Multirotors

    Sep 18, 2026Giuseppe Silano, Martin SaskaQuadrotor ControlRobot Morphology-Control Co-Design

    Department of Power Generation Technologies and Materials, Ricerca sul Sistema Energetico (RSE) S.p.A., 20134 Milan, Italy · Department of Cybernetics, Czech Technical University in Prague, 12135 Prague, Czech Republic

  19. GLAMDRING: Gait Learning And Morphology co-Design via Reinforcement LearnING of CPGs

    Sep 16, 2026Amogh Joshi, Kaushik RoyRobot Morphology-Control Co-DesignRobotics

    Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA

  20. GeoTrussRover: Morphological Computation with Contact-Semantic Control Primitives

    Sep 10, 2026Muyuan Ma, Yi Zhang, Yang Yang +12Constrained Motion PlanningRobot Morphology-Control Co-Design

  21. Breaking speed scaling in quadrupedal robots via Huygens' coupled-pendulum dynamics

    Sep 9, 2026Yucheng Tao, Yongbin Jin, Shaowen Cheng +8Compliant Legged LocomotionLegged Robotics

    Center for X-Mechanics, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China. · ZJU-Hangzhou Global Scientific and Technological Innovation Center, Hangzhou, China. · Mirrorme Technology Co., Ltd., Shanghai, China.

  22. BRIDGE: An Open-Source Humanoid Platform via Morphology-Control Co-Design for Physical AI

    Sep 3, 2026Jianren Wang, Letian Qian, Zikai Wang +4Humanoid Robot LocomotionRobot Morphology-Control Co-Design

    1Carnegie Mellon University · 2Huazhong University of Science and Technology · 3JoyIn AI

  23. Tensegrity Continuum Robots Enable Task-Adaptive Morphologies for Cooperative Behaviors

    Aug 27, 2026Mahmud Hasan Saikot, Sydney Spiegel, Sudheera Akalanka Kariyawasam +3Tensegrity RoboticsRobotics

    Adaptive Robotics Lab, Department of Mechanical Engineering, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA

  24. RoboLDA: A Probabilistic Generative Model for Uncovering Embodied Hierarchical Structures in Voxel-based Soft Robots

    Aug 24, 2026Junru Song, Yang Yang, Jingdan Shi +6Generative ModelingSoft Robotics

    School of Computer Science, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, 200240, China · Intelligent Game and Decision Laboratory, Beijing, 100071, China · School of Statistics, Renmin University of China, Beijing, 100872, China +3

  25. Shaping the Evolutionary Dynamics of Robot Morphology via Adaptive Control Learning

    Aug 24, 2026Junru Song, Yang Yang, Yaqing Xu +5Robot Morphology-Control Co-DesignEvolutionary Robotics

    Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai 200240, China · Intelligent Game and Decision Laboratory, Beijing 100048, China · Renmin University of China, Beijing 100872, China +1

  26. Vision-Guided Morphing Quadcopter for Multi-Geometry Payload Transport through Narrow Passages

    Aug 22, 2026Aashish Sahu, Shriram Hari, R. Prasanth KumarAerial RoboticsAerial Manipulation

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

  27. Lifelong Robot Recomposition via Persistent Categorical Modeling for Unified Task-Driven Co-Design, Verification, and Planning

    Aug 21, 2026Steven Swanbeck, Mitch PryorRoboticsRobot Task Planning

    Texas Robotics and the Walker Department of Mechanical Engineering, The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX 78712, USA

  28. Koala Gripper: Co-designing Robotic Grippers and Data-Capture Devices for Scaling Dexterous Manipulation Learning

    Aug 20, 2026Amar Hajj-Ahmad, Zubin Kremer Guha, Tim Fofonoff +8Robotic Gripper DesignRobotic Manipulation

    * These authors contributed equally to this work.

  29. Co-design of Neural and Muscle Network based on Embodied Perceptron Representation

    Aug 17, 2026Siyuan Tao, Yoichi Masuda, Hiroyuki Nabae +1Embodied AIRobot Morphology-Control Co-Design

    Department of Mechanical Engineering The University of Osaka, Osaka · Department of Mechanical Engineering Institute of Science Tokyo, Tokyo

  30. Transformer Transformer: A Unified Model for Motion-Conditioned Robot Co-design

    Jul 28, 2026Huy Ha, C. Karen Liu, Shuran SongRobot Morphology-Control Co-DesignDiffusion Transformer

    Stanford University · Columbia University