Legged Locomotion
How can we get robots to move through the world?
Wheels are great for moving over flat surfances, but if you want to go almost anywhere on land, it’s hard to beat legs.
Legged robots could enable new transportation methods, assist in disaster response, and help restore mobility to people who have lost it.
Just like manipulation, people and animals are so good at legged locomotion that we often underestimate how difficult it is. Despite recent a surge of progress in legged robotics, numerous thorny questions remain. How can a legged robot use its whole body – not just the feet – to move through the world? What sort of models do we need to achieve animal-level performance? What are the underlying principles behind legged locomotion in nature, and what do those look like when applied to robots?