KYON: Semi-Modular Wheel-Legged Quadruped With Agile Bimanual Capability

2026-06-29

AI Summary

This work proposes KYON, a semi-modular wheeled-legged quadrupedal robot designed to address the challenge of simultaneously achieving high-mobility locomotion and dexterous dual-arm manipulation in complex unstructured environments. KYON innovatively integrates reconfigurable lower limbs with an agile dual-arm upper body, employing a base-concentrated actuation and mechanical transmission scheme to minimize end-effector inertia while enabling seamless transitions between wheeled and legged locomotion modes. A whole-body cooperative control framework combined with reinforcement learning strategies facilitates efficient coupling of mobility and manipulation tasks. Experimental results demonstrate that KYON exhibits high dynamic locomotion capabilities, stable dual-arm manipulation performance, and strong environmental adaptability, enabling reliable operation in diverse unstructured scenarios.

Abstract

This paper presents KYON, a hybrid wheel-legged quadruped robot equipped with a bimanual upper body for loco-manipulation tasks. The platform features a semi-modular design with a reconfigurable lower legs, enabling both wheeled and legged locomotion depending on the environment. A design approach that places actuators in the base and uses transmission mechanisms reduces distal inertia, improving agility and dynamic performance. The robot integrates a whole-body control framework together with a reinforcement learning based policy to handle nonlinear dynamics and enhance robustness to disturbances for the execution of locomotion and manipulation tasks, independently. Experimental results demonstrate effective dynamic locomotion and bimanual manipulation, validating the platform's capability to operate in complex and unstructured scenarios.

Problem

• wheel-legged robot
• loco-manipulation
• bimanual manipulation
• quadruped robot
• complex environments

Innovation

• semi-modular design
• wheel-legged locomotion
• distal inertia reduction
• whole-body control
• reinforcement learning