# RAIWAY: 20-inch large-wheel bipedal robot uses contact-informed blind locomotion control to traverse rugged terrain

- Source: arXiv cs.RO
- Published: 2026-10-27T04:00:00.000Z
- RoboHot: https://robohot.news/en/items/jjohwgpn4pduvhaoiwotep611
- Original: https://arxiv.org/abs/2610.33172

## Summary

A Korean team proposed the RAIWAY wheeled bipedal robot and a contact-informed control method. The robot is equipped with 20-inch wheels and can roll across irregular and discontinuous terrain. The method distills multi-contact events into a latent representation in simulation, and at deployment infers it online from proprioception alone, requiring no contact sensors. Real-world tests covered steep slopes, gravel, studded surfaces, and rocky terrain, and demonstrated continuous ascent on outdoor stairs with step heights up to 15 cm, outperforming baselines without the contact-informed mechanism.