The DLAR Lab has submitted a paper titled “16 Ways to Gallop: Energetics and Body Dynamics of High-Speed Quadrupedal Gaits” to IROS 2025. The paper, authored by Yasser G. Alqaham, Jing Cheng, and Zhenyu Gan, systematically analyzes various galloping gaits, focusing on their energetic efficiency and body dynamics. The study investigates different galloping footfall sequences, exploring how the number of flight phases and the phase relationships between the front and rear legs impact energy consumption.
Using the A1 quadrupedal robot, the team employed hybrid dynamics and trajectory optimization to minimize the cost of transport across a range of speeds. The results demonstrate that the number of flight phases significantly influences energy efficiency, with galloping gaits with two flight phases showing the best performance at higher speeds. These findings offer valuable insights for improving the efficiency of quadrupedal robots and advancing high-speed locomotion strategies.
The full paper and more details can be found on our GitHub: https://github.com/DLARlab/16WaystoGallop