MOBIUS: A Multi-Modal Bipedal Robot that can Walk, Crawl, Climb, and Roll


Alexander Schperberg, Yusuke Tanaka, Stefano Di Cairano, Dennis Hong

Paper ID 24

Session Humanoids

Posters presented in the poster session following their oral. Locations not assigned.

Abstract: This paper presents the MOBIUS platform, a bipedal robot capable of walking, crawling, climbing, and rolling. MOBIUS features four limbs, two 6-DoF arms with two-finger grippers for manipulation and climbing, and two 4-DoF legs for locomotion–enabling smooth transitions across diverse terrains without reconfiguration. A hybrid control architecture combines reinforcement learning for locomotion and admittance control enhanced for safety by a Reference Governor and auto-tuning toward compliant contact interactions during manipulation. A high-level MIQCP planner autonomously selects locomotion modes to balance stability and energy efficiency. Hardware experiments demonstrate robust gait transitions, dynamic climbing, and full-body load support via pinch grasp. Overall, MOBIUS demonstrates the importance of tight integration between morphology, high-level planning, and control to enable mobile loco-manipulation and grasping, substantially expanding its interaction capabilities, workspace, and traversability.