Design and Implementation of a Swimming and Walking Quadruped for Seafloor Exploration
Ashley Chase, Benjamin Labiner, Jonathan Boylan, Cameron Ryals, Jack Vranicar, Michael Dina, Derek A. Vasquez, Dane Seal
Abstract
The seafloor is a complex environment and it is challenging to conduct detailed mapping, soil composition sampling, and habitat characterization missions in this benthic region. As a step toward overcoming these challenges, we present a quadruped robot capable of walking on the seafloor and maneuvering via midfluid swimming. SELQIE, the Seafloor Environment Legged Quadruped Intelligent Explorer, is capable of walking underwater at speeds up to <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$0.2 ~\mathrm{m} / \mathrm{s}$</tex>, swimming at over <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$0.16 ~\mathrm{m} / \mathrm{s}$</tex>, and transitioning between modes. We also introduce a path planning algorithm that can account for both swimming and walking gaits to efficiently navigate around or over obstacles, and demonstrate the robot executing such a multi-modal trajectory.
BibTeX
@inproceedings{icra2025_designandimpleme,
title = {Design and Implementation of a Swimming and Walking Quadruped for Seafloor Exploration},
author = {Ashley Chase and Benjamin Labiner and Jonathan Boylan and Cameron Ryals and Jack Vranicar and Michael Dina and Derek A. Vasquez and Dane Seal and Charles Young and Louis St. Laurent and Camilo Ordonez and Jonathan E. Clark},
booktitle = {ICRA 2025},
year = {2025}
}