REACH: An RL-based Hierarchical Humanoid Crawling Framework for Adaptable Confined Space Traversal

Abstract

Humanoid locomotion in confined spaces requires continuous height adaptation across multiple locomotion modes, yet most existing approaches remain limited to height-adjustable bipedal walking. We present REACH, an RL-based hierarchical framework that enables a Unitree G1 humanoid to traverse height-constrained environments through variable-height bipedal walking and crawling. The learned policies regulate body height over complementary command ranges of 1.27--0.50m in bipedal locomotion and 0.50--0.20m in crawling, extending traversal beyond the clearance limits of crouched walking. To address contact-rich crawling dynamics, we employ a history-conditioned latent representation that captures terrain and interaction context from proprioceptive observations. A bidirectional transition policy further connects crouched bipedal locomotion and crawling across large kinematic and contact discontinuities. These skills are integrated with a LiDAR-based planner that converts point clouds into collision-free three-dimensional paths and locomotion commands, including proactive height targets. Real-world experiments demonstrate accurate height and velocity tracking, robust terrain traversal, reliable mode transitions and confined-space traversal with the proposed pipeline. Code and videos are available at https://aislab-sustech.github.io/REACH/.