Benchmarking Robots with Dog-Inspired Barkour

Inspired by dog agility courses, a team of scientists from Google DeepMind has developed a robot agility course to test the abilities of four-legged robots called “Barkour.”

Since the 1970s, dogs have been trained to nimbly jump through hoops, scale inclines, and weave between poles in order to demonstrate agility. To take home ribbons at these competitions, dogs must have not only speed but keen reflexes and attention to detail. These courses also set a benchmark for how agility should be measured across breeds, which is something that Atil Iscen—Google DeepMind scientist in…