Towards Real-World Deployment of Legged Robots

Subterranean environments, collapsed buildings, and disaster areas are some of the most challenging environments to traverse. They represent a high risk even for humans due to factors such as changing environment over time, rough and unstable terrain and low visibility conditions. Legged robots, which are capable of traversing challenging environments thanks to their high mobility and locomotion capabilities, still fail to negotiate these kinds of scenarios successfully. Moreover, there are only a few real-world deployments of legged robots, and complex terrain settings present significant challenges to be solved. In this context, we are seeking for robotic solutions that can map, navigate, search, and manipulate in dynamic environments rapidly. This workshop will explore possible real-world applications of legged robots, will discuss the missing technology that is holding back the deployment of legged robots, and will feature both distinguished invited speakers and solicited papers. For this purpose, we bring together industry and research to discuss these topics.