Learning Structured Locomotion References for Optimization-Based Whole-Body Control

Abstract

Quadruped locomotion requires coordinating body motion,contact forces, foothold placement, and gait timing. We present a hierarchical controller in which reinforcement learning adapts these structured locomotion references while a gait scheduler, reactive footstep planner, and whole-body impulse controller retain responsibility for high-frequency execution. The model-based backbone can sustain a nominal trot independently, allowing the policy to focus on when and how to modify an already functional locomotion controller. We train the complete hierarchy in a vectorized controller-in-the-loop environment using a six-direction disturbance curriculum. Under a common simulator and evaluation protocol, the proposed controller achieves 77.29% mean survival across the tested disturbance grid, compared with 50.35% for the model-based reference controller. Training-time channel ablations identify adaptive foothold placement as the largest marginal contributor to grid survival and reveal direction-dependent effects of gait-rate adaptation. Together, these results demonstrate the viability of the proposed hierarchical controller architecture for integrating learned adaptation with optimization-based whole-body control through structured locomotion references.