I remember articles about a competition DARPA had to this effect, using an off-the-shelf simulator (maybe Bullet?). At first, the simulated robots learned to hack the sim. Some did a vibration thing that messed with the friction model, sort of like a vibrating cell phone moving across a table. Others learned to hack collision detection/response, doing a sort of jump / pole-vault thing that would explosively hurl them forward. I assume they later tweaked the sim and the rewards until they actually got the walking behaviors they wanted.
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I remember articles about a competition DARPA had to this effect, using an off-the-shelf simulator (maybe Bullet?). At first, the simulated robots learned to hack the sim. Some did a vibration thing that messed with the friction model, sort of like a vibrating cell phone moving across a table. Others learned to hack collision detection/response, doing a sort of jump / pole-vault thing that would explosively hurl them forward. I assume they later tweaked the sim and the rewards until they actually got the walking behaviors they wanted.