Challenges facing the next generation of legged robots

Humanoid and quadrupedal robots could transform the way people work, interact and coexist with intelligent machines, according to a new paper co-authored by Dr Matías Mattamala in the School of Informatics. But the researchers say their growing capabilities also raise significant ethical, economic, policy and societal questions.

Image of the Honda Asimo robot waving — The humanoid robot ASIMO of Honda live in action at Miraikan museum of emerging science and innovation. Image credit: Maximalfocus, Unsplash

The paper, published in Science Robotics, takes stock of where legged robot technology currently stands — from hardware and locomotion to autonomy and real-world data — and sets out the key challenges that still need to be solved before humanoid and quadrupedal robots see more widespread use.

The next generation of legged robots

The researchers argue that legged robots are approaching a turning point. Recent advances in mobility and autonomy mean these machines are increasingly able to navigate the kinds of unstructured, unpredictable environments - homes, workplaces, disaster zones - that have long been difficult for robots built on wheels or tracks. But significant hurdles remain, including the cost and robustness of hardware, the availability of real-world data to train these systems, and the reliability needed for them to operate safely alongside people.

Beyond the engineering challenges, the paper also looks further ahead, examining the ethical, economic and policy questions that will shape how legged robots are adopted — including their potential impact on jobs, the regulatory frameworks needed to govern their use, and the broader societal effects of machines that can move and act more like humans and animals.

From the lab to the real world

The authors stress that as legged robots move into wider use across different sectors, their impact is no longer confined to the lab but extends into the economy and society more broadly. Rather than only cataloguing technical progress, open challenges and current applications, the paper reflects on what these developments mean at a time when the societal, economical and ethical stakes are growing.

The paper also explores what it means for people to share space with machines that move like humans and animals. Unlike robots confined to factory floors or fixed rails, legged robots are designed to operate in the same complex, shared environments as people — from homes and offices to hospitals and streets — raising questions that go far beyond engineering.

The authors call for ethical considerations to be reflected directly in legislation, and urge developers and researchers to stay alert to the biases and potential harms that legged robots could introduce. Underlying all of this, they argue, are harder questions about who gets to decide how the technology is built, deployed and controlled.

I think we have all seen videos of quadruped robots or humanoids in social media. How did this happen? In this article we review the technologies that explain this widespread adoption. However, we do not merely provide a technical overview but further reflect on all the dimensions robotics spans. Robotics is a deeply interdisciplinary field, so we cannot see these different faces in isolation.
For example, the robots’ hardware define their motion capabilities but also their appearance. Their appearance carries implicit biases, and it also determines how people feel about them–especially when they have humanoid shape. On the other hand, the recent progress in artificial intelligence has reshaped the way we develop new algorithms and their real-world reliability. These advances are unlocking new commercial applications that were considered absolutely unfeasible five years ago, like last mile delivery or the “humanoid boom” we have nowadays.
But beyond legged robots, I hope the article makes us think about how we are shaping the development of robotics today, and how we want robots to shape our society in the future.

The next generation of legged robots

From the lab to the real world

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