Assessment of navigation capabilities of Mini Cheetah robot for monitoring of landslide terrains

Abstract

Navigation in unstructured environments is a relevant topic and a still difficult challenge for robotic research. The possibility to use biomimetic legged robots to explore uneven terrains to fulfil monitoring missions as in the case of landslide risk assessment and prevention is an interesting opportunity to overcome the problems related to wheeled platforms. In this work we describe the main characteristics of a quadruped robot endowed with the needed sensory system for navigation and then assess its capability in exploring unstructured terrains, possessing landslide characteristics, evaluating its performance on a typical goal-reaching task.