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TIRAS Transactions on Intelligent Robotics and Autonomous Systems An open access journal of Kaggleyes Academy
TIRAS > Vol. 1, No. 3 (September 2026) > KAGG:2609.00001
Vol. 1, No. 3 (September 2026) — Article KAGG:2609.00001

Predictive Terrain Range Maps for Energy-Efficient Quadruped Navigation

Authors: Jialin Ma, Mingxuan Li, Yutong Zhou

Intelligent Mobility Lab, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China

[Received 2026-08-18; accepted 2026-08-29; published online 2026-09-01]

Abstract:

Energy-efficient quadruped navigation requires knowing not only where obstacles are but also which feasible routes waste energy in rough terrain. Control-aligned future-range prediction estimates free range along the directions the robot's controller can actually execute, but it treats every free meter as equally cheap. This paper extends that representation into a predictive terrain-range map. Each control-aligned ray is annotated with an effort cost obtained by integrating a calibrated interface energy model, which relates terrain class, slope, and speed to electrical power, along the ray's predicted path. The result is a cost-weighted range field that a receding-horizon local planner consumes together with a consistent global cost-to-go, and a single explicit scalar λ sets the exchange rate between distance and energy. For exact route optimization, increasing λ cannot increase route energy or shorten the route. The approach is evaluated on 10 Isaac Lab terrain maps with graded effort cost (5 seeds, 25 goal pairs each) and on a 2.4 km mixed-terrain field loop with a Unitree Go2 and battery telemetry. With λ = 1.0, the planner reaches 1184 J/km, 13.3 percent below a distance-only planner (1365 J/km), with a mean arrival time of 218 s versus 248 s and 96.8 percent goal success versus 90.7 percent. A sweep over λ traces an energy-time frontier from 1412 J/km at 187 s to 1086 J/km at 289 s with diminishing returns beyond λ = 2.0, while energy-only routing is vulnerable to detour loops.

Journal: Transactions on Intelligent Robotics and Autonomous Systems (TIRAS)
Volume / Issue: Vol. 1, No. 3 (September 2026)
Article ID: KAGG:2609.00001
DOI: 10.5803/kagg.2609.00001
Received: 2026-08-18
Accepted: 2026-08-29
Published online: 2026-09-01
License: CC BY 4.0

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Cite this article Jialin Ma, Mingxuan Li, Yutong Zhou, "Predictive Terrain Range Maps for Energy-Efficient Quadruped Navigation," Transactions on Intelligent Robotics and Autonomous Systems, 2026, vol. 1, no. 3, KAGG:2609.00001. DOI: 10.5803/kagg.2609.00001.