2026-05-29原文

Extreme dynamic symmetry enables omnidirectional and multifunctional robots

Researchers propose dynamic symmetry, quantified by dynamic isotropy, as a measure of uniformity in a robot's attainable center-of-mass accelerations. Through simulations and physical experiments, high dynamic symmetry improves trajectory tracking, task success, robustness, resilience, and energy efficiency. The Argus family of spherical robots, especially a 20-legged variant with near-extreme dynamic isotropy, demonstrates orientation-invariant locomotion, agile terrain traversal, rapid self-stabilization, and resilience to actuator failures.

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Key points

Dynamic symmetry is defined as uniformity of a robot's attainable center-of-mass accelerations, measured via dynamic isotropy.
Over 1,000 simulated morphologies show high dynamic symmetry consistently improves performance, with benefits peaking near the theoretical limit.
The Argus robot family uses radially oriented linear actuators; a 20-legged physical prototype achieves near-extreme dynamic isotropy.
The prototype exhibits omnidirectional perception, object interaction, and robust performance on uncertain terrain and under partial failures.

Why it matters

This matters because dynamic symmetry is defined as uniformity of a robot's attainable center-of-mass accelerations, measured via dynamic isotropy.

Technical impact

May affect research directions, evaluation methods, open-source reproduction, and productization paths.

[2605.29254] Extreme dynamic symmetry enables omnidirectional and multifunctional robots

[Submitted on 28 May 2026]

Title:Extreme dynamic symmetry enables omnidirectional and multifunctional robots

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Abstract:Symmetry is a central organizing principle in natural systems, yet its use as a unifying design strategy in robotics has largely remained limited to geometric form. We show that symmetry can instead be leveraged at the level of dynamic actuation capability. We introduce dynamic symmetry, the uniformity of a robot's attainable center-of-mass accelerations, and formalize it through a measure coined as dynamic isotropy. Across more than 1000 simulated morphologies, we found that higher dynamic symmetry consistently improved trajectory tracking, task success, robustness, resiliency, and energy efficiency, with the benefits becoming most pronounced as dynamic isotropy approached its theoretical limit. To study this regime systematically, we developed Argus, a family of spherical robots designed to explore the effects of increasing dynamic symmetry. Members of the Argus family vary in their actuation geometry and dynamic symmetry level while sharing a common architectural principle: radially oriented linear actuators that directly shape the robot's center-of-mass dynamics. Among them, we built a physical 20-leg Argus variant that achieved near-extreme dynamic isotropy and demonstrated orientation-invariant locomotion, agile traversal of cluttered and deformable terrain, rapid self-stabilization, and resilience to partial actuator failures. Its distributed sensing further enabled omnidirectional perception and object interaction during continuous motion. These results show that designing robots for symmetry not only in morphology but also in their attainable dynamics provides a powerful and general pathway toward agility, robustness, and multifunctionality in uncertain terrestrial and extraterrestrial environments.

Comments: Published in Science Robotics (2026). Our project website is at:this https URL

Subjects:

Robotics (cs.RO); Artificial Intelligence (cs.AI)

Cite as: arXiv:2605.29254 [cs.RO]

(or arXiv:2605.29254v1 [cs.RO] for this version)

https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2605.29254

arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration)

Journal reference: Science Robotics 11, eaec1725 (2026)

Submission history

From: Jiaxun Liu [view email] [v1] Thu, 28 May 2026 02:15:58 UTC (18,108 KB)

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