# Fast and Continuous Foothold Adaptation for Dynamic Locomotion through CNNs

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1809.09759 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1809.09759/

## Key facts

- Cited by 11 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 25 Sep 2018.

## Built on by (most cited first, 11 of 11)

- [Legged Locomotion in Challenging Terrains using Egocentric Vision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.07638/) (2022)
- [Robot Parkour Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.05665/) (2023)
- [Coupling Vision and Proprioception for Navigation of Legged Robots](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.02094/) (2021)
- [Learning to Jump from Pixels](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2110.15344/) (2021)
- [SoloParkour: Constrained Reinforcement Learning for Visual Locomotion from Privileged Experience](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2409.13678/) (2024)
- [Hiking in the Wild: A Scalable Perceptive Parkour Framework for Humanoids](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.07718/) (2026)
- [PI-ARS: Accelerating Evolution-Learned Visual-Locomotion with Predictive Information Representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.13224/) (2022)
- [Learning to Walk by Steering: Perceptive Quadrupedal Locomotion in Dynamic Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.09233/) (2022)
- [Generating a Terrain-Robustness Benchmark for Legged Locomotion: A Prototype via Terrain Authoring and Active Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2208.07681/) (2022)
- [DeepTransition: Viability Leads to the Emergence of Gait Transitions in Learning Anticipatory Quadrupedal Locomotion Skills](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.07419/) (2023)
- [Kinematically-Decoupled Impedance Control for Fast Object Visual Servoing and Grasping on Quadruped Manipulators](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.04918/) (2023)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Legged robots can outperform wheeled machines for most navigation tasks across unknown and rough terrains. For such tasks, visual feedback is a fundamental asset to provide robots with terrain-awareness. However, robust dynamic locomotion on difficult terrains with real-time performance guarantees remains a challenge. We present here a real-time, dynamic foothold adaptation strategy based on visual feedback. Our method adjusts the landing position of the feet in a fully reactive manner, using only on-board computers and sensors. The correction is computed and executed continuously along the swing phase trajectory of each leg. To efficiently adapt the landing position, we implement a self-supervised foothold classifier based on a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN). Our method results in an up to 200 times faster computation with respect to the full-blown heuristics. Our goal is to react to visual stimuli from the environment, bridging the gap between blind reactive locomotion and purely vision-based planning strategies. We assess the performance of our method on the dynamic quadruped robot HyQ, executing static and dynamic gaits (at speeds up to 0.5 m/s) in both simulated and real scenarios; the benefit of safe foothold adaptation is clearly demonstrated by the overall robot behavior.