Terrain-Aware Robot Locomotion
Overview
The field asks how robots can move safely and efficiently when terrain changes foothold availability, stability, and contact forces. Common approaches combine depth cameras, LiDAR, or terrain maps with proprioceptive and tactile feedback, using reinforcement learning, foothold planning, and model-predictive control to choose actions. Physics-based models of granular soil, mud, and wheel–ground interaction also help predict slip and sinkage, especially for off-road and planetary robots. A central challenge is making policies generalize from simulation and familiar surfaces to real terrain with uncertain geometry, noisy sensing, and changing contact mechanics.
Latest papers
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