Locomotion

Walking

Walking is legged locomotion in which at least one foot remains in ground contact at all times, distinguishing it from running, which includes flight phases. Robot walking control spans ZMP-based trajectory generation for humanoids, capture-point and model-predictive controllers built on reduced models like the linear inverted pendulum, and, increasingly, reinforcement-learned policies trained in simulation and transferred to hardware.

Why it matters for physical AI

Robust walking is the gateway capability for humanoids and quadrupeds entering human environments, and the sim-to-real recipes proven on locomotion now inform how contact-rich skills of all kinds are trained.