Ongoing
Lunar Leaper
Lunar locomotion research and development.
- Lunar locomotion
- Legged robotics
- Space exploration
Yusuke Tanaka / Robotics Research
Robots that move beyond the expected.
Designed for extreme.
From contact-rich climbers to expressive installations, each platform begins with a different question about how a robot can move.
2021–2025
SCALER
SCALER (Spine-enhanced Climbing Autonomous Limbed Exploration Robot) is a quadruped-limbed robot for free-climbing in extreme terrains. It combines tightly coupled locomotion and grasping to traverse vertical, overhang, ceiling, slippery, and bouldering surfaces.
- Published in IEEE Transactions on Robotics (T-RO), 2025
- 7 IEEE Publications
- Quadrupedal free-climbing
2023–2025
MOBIUS
A 10 kg multi-modal humanoid capable of bipedal, quadrupedal, rolling, climbing, and pull-up behaviours with spine-enhanced GOAT grippers.
- Published in Robotics: Science and Systems (RSS), 2026
- Multi-modal locomotion
- GOAT grippers
2024–2025
BALLU arts
A balloon-based buoyancy-assisted bipedal robot: safe, interactive, and designed as a long-running autonomous kinetic installation.
- Buoyancy-assisted biped
- Custom electronics
- Decentralized legs
2023–
Project SPLITTER
Foundational work for an agile modular robot: cycloidal quasi-direct-drive actuation, multi-modal force-sensing grippers, and inertial morphing for planetary exploration.
- CQDD actuator
- MAGPIE gripper
- Planetary exploration
The full archive
More projects.
Research focus
Robots that climb, adapt, and make contact count.
- Legged, limbed, and climbing robots
- Mechanisms and computational design
- Simultaneous locomotion and grasping
- Deep RL locomotion and frameworks
Contribution
Research in context.
Publication
Peer-reviewed research across mechanisms, locomotion, climbing, and learning.
Open →Review Service
Conference, journal, and other review activity across 2022–2026.
Open →Demonstrations
Live demonstrations spanning BALLU, MOBIUS, REMS, and SCALER research.
Open →Awards
UABB, ICRA and SICE awards alongside coverage from IEEE Spectrum, TechXplore, UCLA, and Universe Today.
Open →Elsewhere
Google Scholar ↗ResearchGate ↗GitHub ↗