Google taught a robot dog new tricks by having it mimic the real thing
A real dog doesn't need to be programmed to move, but a robotic dog does. And that's hard. (Photo by Joe Caione on Unsplash/)Anybody who has ever observed a dog moving around—maybe it’s just walking, jumping, or catching a frisbee—has probably noticed just how dynamic, complex and natural a canine’s motions can be. The animal probably doesn’t think much at all about the order in which it puts its four paws on the ground when it’s trotting along. It just does it.Now, imagine you had a robotic dog, and you wanted to try to program it to just do something basic, like walking. Even if you were a skilled programmer, you’d likely find it a daunting task to get your mechanical canine to smoothly carry out actions like that, let alone a furry frisbee jump.To try to find a faster, more scalable approach, researchers from Google and the University of...