{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,22]],"date-time":"2026-09-22T12:15:38Z","timestamp":1790079338705,"version":"4.0.1"},"reference-count":37,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"9","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,19]],"date-time":"2026-09-19T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1789776000000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Biomimetics"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Terrain-aware training can support locomotion without requiring terrain-height input at deployment. We present a quadrupedal control framework that combines privileged teacher\u2013student learning with a shared gait-structured sensor-consistency central pattern generator (GSC-CPG). A recurrent student uses proprioception, contact, commands, action history, and rhythmic state to produce 12-dimensional modulation of the controller. Teacher and student act through the same phase and foot-target pathways. We evaluated the framework in Go2 simulations with disturbances applied to actor observations and direct simulator feedback retained downstream. Across three matched policy pairs, each with a shared behavior-cloned initialization, continued teacher guidance reduced the pooled rough-terrain failure rate from 1.479 to 1.097 events per robot-minute. Tracking, body tilt, forward speed, and action saturation also improved, while action variation increased. These locomotion benefits extended to a held-out roughness amplitude. On an unseen 5\u00b0 uphill slope, guided policies had no physical falls over 384 robot-minutes, compared with nine for guidance-off policies. Component tests showed selective, reversible phase responses and a support-related speed\u2013stability trade-off. The results support a shared rhythmic interface for transferring terrain-aware supervision to terrain-height-blind locomotion under the tested simulation conditions.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/biomimetics11090677","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,22]],"date-time":"2026-09-22T11:09:35Z","timestamp":1790075375000},"page":"677","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Terrain-Height-Blind Quadrupedal Locomotion Through Privileged Teacher\u2013Student Learning and a Shared Gait-Structured Central Pattern Generator"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"11","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0007-5851-293X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Rui","family":"Qin","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Key Laboratory of Road Construction Technology and Equipment, Ministry of Education, Chang\u2019an University, Xi\u2019an 710064, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"},{"role":"conceptualization","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"methodology","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"software","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"validation","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"formal-analysis","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"writing-original-draft","vocabulary":"credit"}]},{"given":"Yongbiao","family":"Hu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Key Laboratory of Road Construction Technology and Equipment, Ministry of Education, Chang\u2019an University, Xi\u2019an 710064, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"},{"role":"writing-review-editing","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"supervision","vocabulary":"credit"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-9103-4211","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Yaguang","family":"Zhu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Key Laboratory of Road Construction Technology and Equipment, Ministry of Education, Chang\u2019an University, Xi\u2019an 710064, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"},{"role":"conceptualization","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"supervision","vocabulary":"credit"},{"role":"writing-review-editing","vocabulary":"credit"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,19]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"eabk2822","DOI":"10.1126\/scirobotics.abk2822","article-title":"Learning Robust Perceptive Locomotion for Quadrupedal Robots in the Wild","volume":"7","author":"Miki","year":"2022","journal-title":"Sci. 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