DHAV-Hy is a wheeled-legged quadruped robot from Bengaluru-based xTerra Robotics, an IIT Kanpur-incubated deep-tech startup , built for teams that need a single platform to move quickly across flat ground and still handle stairs, slopes, and broken terrain. Its hub-drive wheels allow it to move quickly across relatively open and even surfaces, while its legs enable it to negotiate stairs, slopes, uneven ground, and other challenging terrain where conventional wheeled robots may encounter limitations. The company is positioning it for security, surveillance, industrial inspection, construction and autonomous field operations .
This launch matters because it extends xTerra's earlier DHAV industrial quadruped into a lighter, faster hybrid class that is still rare in the Indian robotics market. The robot reaches speeds of approximately 18 km/h (5 m/s) in wheeled mode and has an indicative weight of around 22 kg, including its battery. On the software side, it incorporates 360-degree 3D LiDAR and stereo-depth sensing, and its software stack supports ROS2 along with Python and C++ software development kits. Operators can control it using an RF joystick or through web-based long-range teleoperation, and it has autonomous capabilities to support applications where continuous human control is not practical.
The company was formally launched in March 2023 and grew out of legged-robotics research at IIT Kanpur. It was founded by five co-founders, Aditya Rajawat, Amritanshu Manu, Avinash Bhashkar, Nimesh Khandelwal and Professor Shakti S. Gupta, with Rajawat serving as CEO, Manu as COO, Bhashkar as hardware CTO, Khandelwal as software CTO and Gupta as chairman. Its portfolio includes in-house quasi-direct-drive actuators, autonomous navigation, real-time state estimation and force-control technologies designed to improve the performance of legged robots in unstructured environments.
Comments (15)
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Priyanka R.23d ago
That shot of it climbing stairs did more marketing work than the entire tagline. Also 'Leading the Future of Robotics' is what every robotics deck says on slide one, please cook a real line.
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Vikrom Bhatt23d ago
Wheeled-legged is the correct answer and I will die on this hill. Pure quadrupeds look cool in demos and cry on gravel.
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Nadia El-Khoury23d ago
The video edit is clean but the color grade is doing that beige-orange thing every robotics reel does. Give me some contrast, let the machine actually pop off the background.
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Toshi O.23d ago
Genuinely impressive that the launch tweet doesn't say 'AI-powered' even once. Rare restraint in 2025.
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Kwame Darko23d ago
Security, surveillance and inspection is three different buyer personas in one sentence. Which one are you actually chasing first?
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Marek Polanski23d ago
Before I tweet 'interesting' I need to know payload, runtime per charge and who's actually reordering these after pilot one.
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Reena V.23d ago
A wheeled robot goes where it's told. A legged robot chooses where to go. A wheeled-legged robot files a change request.
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Finn Jacobs23d ago
Building in adjacent space (ground rovers for agri) and honestly the stair sequence made me insecure for a moment. Well done team.
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Hariom D.23d ago
Any plans to open up the SDK or at least publish docs for the perception stack? Half the reason Spot got mindshare was the developer story.
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Anushka R.23d ago
Fantastic hardware, terrible thumbnail. The robot is dead center on a busy background and you can't read the product name for the first two seconds.
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Chiamaka Obi23d ago
The name DHAV-Hy sounds like a WiFi password my uncle would set. Robot looks great though, name needs a redo.
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Benoît Amin23d ago
For anyone in security procurement watching: where does the telemetry live and can it be kept fully on-prem? Asking for every compliance officer I know.
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Zara Iqbal23d ago
Working on a story about Indian field robotics this quarter, would love five minutes with the founding team whenever the launch dust settles.
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Olek Jensen23d ago
This is probably the last quadruped launched without an 'agentic autonomy layer' in the tagline. Screenshot this tweet, it's a time capsule.
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Lucas Ferreira23d ago
Surveillance quadrupeds are a shrinking category, everyone will just bolt cameras onto drones and call it a day. Change my mind.
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DHAV-Hy is a wheeled-legged quadruped robot from Bengaluru-based xTerra Robotics, an IIT Kanpur-incubated deep-tech startup , built for teams that need a single platform to move quickly across flat ground and still handle stairs, slopes, and broken terrain. Its hub-drive wheels allow it to move quickly across relatively open and even surfaces, while its legs enable it to negotiate stairs, slopes, uneven ground, and other challenging terrain where conventional wheeled robots may encounter limitations. The company is positioning it for security, surveillance, industrial inspection, construction and autonomous field operations . This launch matters because it extends xTerra's earlier DHAV industrial quadruped into a lighter, faster hybrid class that is still rare in the Indian robotics market. The robot reaches speeds of approximately 18 km/h (5 m/s) in wheeled mode and has an indicative weight of around 22 kg, including its battery. On the software side, it incorporates 360-degree 3D LiDAR and stereo-depth sensing, and its software stack supports ROS2 along with Python and C++ software development kits. Operators can control it using an RF joystick or through web-based long-range teleoperation, and it has autonomous capabilities to support applications where continuous human control is not practical. The company was formally launched in March 2023 and grew out of legged-robotics research at IIT Kanpur. It was founded by five co-founders, Aditya Rajawat, Amritanshu Manu, Avinash Bhashkar, Nimesh Khandelwal and Professor Shakti S. Gupta, with Rajawat serving as CEO, Manu as COO, Bhashkar as hardware CTO, Khandelwal as software CTO and Gupta as chairman. Its portfolio includes in-house quasi-direct-drive actuators, autonomous navigation, real-time state estimation and force-control technologies designed to improve the performance of legged robots in unstructured environments.
Comments (15)
That shot of it climbing stairs did more marketing work than the entire tagline. Also 'Leading the Future of Robotics' is what every robotics deck says on slide one, please cook a real line.
Wheeled-legged is the correct answer and I will die on this hill. Pure quadrupeds look cool in demos and cry on gravel.
The video edit is clean but the color grade is doing that beige-orange thing every robotics reel does. Give me some contrast, let the machine actually pop off the background.
Genuinely impressive that the launch tweet doesn't say 'AI-powered' even once. Rare restraint in 2025.
Security, surveillance and inspection is three different buyer personas in one sentence. Which one are you actually chasing first?
Before I tweet 'interesting' I need to know payload, runtime per charge and who's actually reordering these after pilot one.
A wheeled robot goes where it's told. A legged robot chooses where to go. A wheeled-legged robot files a change request.
Building in adjacent space (ground rovers for agri) and honestly the stair sequence made me insecure for a moment. Well done team.
Any plans to open up the SDK or at least publish docs for the perception stack? Half the reason Spot got mindshare was the developer story.
Fantastic hardware, terrible thumbnail. The robot is dead center on a busy background and you can't read the product name for the first two seconds.
The name DHAV-Hy sounds like a WiFi password my uncle would set. Robot looks great though, name needs a redo.
For anyone in security procurement watching: where does the telemetry live and can it be kept fully on-prem? Asking for every compliance officer I know.
Working on a story about Indian field robotics this quarter, would love five minutes with the founding team whenever the launch dust settles.
This is probably the last quadruped launched without an 'agentic autonomy layer' in the tagline. Screenshot this tweet, it's a time capsule.
Surveillance quadrupeds are a shrinking category, everyone will just bolt cameras onto drones and call it a day. Change my mind.