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

Abstract:Wheeled-legged robots combine the efficiency of rolling with the adaptability of legged locomotion, offering unique agility for dynamic environments. However, enabling rapid reflexive evasion remains challenging due to the coexistence of heterogeneous wheel-leg dynamics, hybrid locomotion modes, and non-holonomic constraints. In this work, we investigate how wheeled-legged robots can exploit their hybrid morphology for high-dynamic obstacle avoidance. We propose AWARE, a hierarchical reinforcement learning framework that decomposes avoidance into navigation-avoidance and reflexive-evasion regimes coordinated by a threat-conditioned high-level policy. By learning specialized low-level experts, AWARE autonomously discovers distinct rolling-, stepping-, and hybrid-dominated evasive behaviors, including forward lunges and lateral dodges. Simulation experiments across different reaction times and approach directions, together with real-robot evaluations on the M20 platform, demonstrate improved evasion capability and effective online transition between locomotion regimes. These results highlight the potential of exploiting hybrid wheel-leg actuation for agile and reactive mobility in dynamic environments. Paper homepage: this https URL.

Robotics (cs.RO)

arXiv:2604.23761 [cs.RO]

(or arXiv:2604.23761v2 [cs.RO] for this version)

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2604.23761 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite

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