Locomotion

Blind Locomotion

Blind locomotion is legged locomotion controlled without exteroceptive sensing such as cameras or LiDAR, relying solely on proprioception: joint positions, torques, and inertial measurements. Lee et al.'s 2020 Science Robotics work showed a proprioceptive policy trained in simulation with a teacher-student scheme could carry ANYmal over mud, snow, and vegetation, feeling out terrain through contact. Perceptive controllers now build on blind policies as a robust fallback layer.

Why it matters for physical AI

Cameras fail in dust, darkness, and glare, so a proprioceptive core that survives total perception loss remains the reliability backbone of deployed legged systems.