It’s Barkour, not Parkour, and it’s a reinforcement learning methodology – specifically a dog agility course – used by Google engineers to “train” (i.e. evaluate and improve development) quadrupedal robots.

Andrew Paul of Popular Science originally reported on Barkour in mid-2023.

Barkour: Dog Agility Course for Robots

Researchers hope the ‘Barkour’ challenge can become an industry benchmark.

Excerpted from the original.

“…a team of research scientists at Google are aiming to streamline evaluations [of quadrupedal robots} through their new system that’s as ingenious as it is obvious: robot obstacle courses akin to dog agility competitions. It’s time to stretch those robotic limbs and ready the next generation of four-legged machines for Barkour.

In simple terms, the Barkour agility course is nearly identical to many dog courses, albeit much more compact at 5-by-5 meters to allow for easy setup in labs. The current standard version includes four unique obstacles—a line of poles to weave between, an A-frame structure to climb up and down, a 0.5m broad jump, and finally, a step up onto an end table.

To make sure the Barkour setup was fair to robots mimicking dogs, the team first offered up the space to actual canines—in this case, a small group of “dooglers,” aka Google employees’ own four-legged friends. According to the team, small dogs managed to complete the course in around 10 seconds, while robots usually take about double that time.

You can read the original article in its entirety right here on Popsci.com/technology/.

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