Trajectory tracking of multi-legged robot based on model predictive and sliding mode control

•Use decoupling ideas to solve the whole-body tracking of multi-legged robots.•Deal with body-level stride constraints based on model predictive control.•Design robust adaptive terminal sliding mode controller for limb-level tracking.•Propose gait generator and stride solver to coalesce the two subsystems.•Hybrid controller gives full play to the legged robot’s omnidirectional mobility.