this post was submitted on 19 Mar 2026
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Because wheels aren't all that great in less than carefully managed paths. Quadrupedal motion is just fine in most all situations... Wheels are most efficient, followed by swimming with boyancy, then flying with the wind, then bipedal motion... But quadrupedal motion isn't everywhere for no reason. It's very stable and robust. It's very practical and forgiving in most all situations
Quadrupedal motion is pervasive in nature because wheels (and tank treads for bad terrain) can't readily form via natural processes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotating_locomotion_in_living_systems#Biological_barriers_to_wheeled_organisms
Also this goes back to my note about climbing and jumping. Those would give limbs a real advantage in applications where it is relevant.
I mean, sure, wheels would require an essentially impossible evolutionary path, but they're still very dependent on terrain
Some goats can climb grades no wheel could touch. Wheels have issues with long grasses and roots, don't work great if they don't have good contact with the terrain, aren't good for climbing or ledges, and fast to wear in dirty environments
You can specialize to overcome these challenges, but they're less general purpose. Wheels that would let you travel over uneven terrain need to be big and/or very complex
Wheels work really, really well on suitable surfaces, but they're specialist technology. Quadrepeds are very stable and control their weight distribution much better
From an engineering standpoint, you'd be better off putting the robot dogs on skateboards or in a wheeled carrier then making the kind of high-torque wheels that can lock to work like feet when needed - that's what we use when designing wheels for the kinds of travel these dogs were designed for
Wheels are obviously incredibly useful tech, but they're not the ideal solution for every problem