[2605.05707] On the Emergence of Pendular Structure in Multi-Contact Locomotion
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Computer Science > Robotics
arXiv:2605.05707 (cs)
[Submitted on 7 May 2026]
Title:On the Emergence of Pendular Structure in Multi-Contact Locomotion
Authors:Lingxue Lyu, Zihui Liu
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Abstract:LIPM is everywhere in legged-locomotion control, but almost always as a modeling choice rather than as something the
controller's cost actually prefers. This note tries to make that link more explicit. Working from a small centroidal
OCP that penalizes the rate of angular momentum, we look at what its optimum tends to look like. Three things come
out. With full-rank stance, the optimum drifts toward a pendular force pattern at a rate determined by the SVD of the
moment Jacobian; the constant is set by foot-span geometry and matches the experiments to within 16%. With N=2 stance,
as in trot, the friction cone introduces a lower bound on $\|\dot{H}_G\|$ that no amount of weight tuning fixes; we
also see a non-smooth feasibility kink at a critical horizontal acceleration that we can write in closed form. Adding
a task term that asks for a nonzero $\dot{H}_G$ moves the optimum off the pendular set in a predictable way. None of
this is far from the classical ZMP/DCM picture. We test these claims on a point-mass quadruped and on the Unitree Go1
in MuJoCo (open-loop QP and a torque-level closed-loop controller), and we note where the asymptotic story stops being
a good description of what the closed loop actually does.
Subjects:
Robotics (cs.RO)
Cite as: arXiv:2605.05707 [cs.RO]
(or arXiv:2605.05707v1 [cs.RO] for this version)
https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2605.05707
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arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration)
Submission history
From: Lingxue Lyu [view email] [v1] Thu, 7 May 2026 05:52:43 UTC (376 KB)
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