Terrestrial Bioinspired Robots: Biological Models, Locomotion Modes and a Review of Technological Progress

Terrestrial bioinspired robots emulate the locomotion strategies of land animals and have potential applications in disaster response, planetary exploration, and inspection of complex terrain. This review examines the biological basis of six representative locomotion modes: multi-legged walking and running, elastic jumping, ground-coupled gliding, interface-mediated climbing, peristaltic crawling, and adaptive morphogenesis. It introduces dimensionless descriptors of their kinematics, with explicit reference scales for periodic motion and one-off events. We use morphology-function correspondence to compare representative multi-legged, quadrupedal, jumping, gliding, climbing/peristaltic, and multimodal robots with respect to mechanisms, actuation, sensing, control, quantitative performance, and application scenarios. The cited demonstrations range from laboratory mechanisms to selected quadrupedal field applications; their heterogeneous validation records do not support class-wide numerical readiness ratings. Incomplete reporting of sensing and endurance also limits comparison. The review identifies task-specific co-design needs, with sensing architectures matched to the contact and transition variables that must be regulated in each locomotion mode.