mlsanityData to 7 Oct 2026

Extreme Parkour with Legged Robots

arXiv 2309.14341 ↗First posted 25 Sep 2023cs.RO cs.AI cs.CVcited by 120

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Abstract (arXiv)

Humans can perform parkour by traversing obstacles in a highly dynamic fashion requiring precise eye-muscle coordination and movement. Getting robots to do the same task requires overcoming similar challenges. Classically, this is done by independently engineering perception, actuation, and control systems to very low tolerances. This restricts them to tightly controlled settings such as a predetermined obstacle course in labs. In contrast, humans are able to learn parkour through practice without significantly changing their underlying biology. In this paper, we take a similar approach to developing robot parkour on a small low-cost robot with imprecise actuation and a single front-facing depth camera for perception which is low-frequency, jittery, and prone to artifacts. We show how a single neural net policy operating directly from a camera image, trained in simulation with large-scale RL, can overcome imprecise sensing and actuation to output highly precise control behavior end-to-end. We show our robot can perform a high jump on obstacles 2x its height, long jump across gaps 2x its length, do a handstand and run across tilted ramps, and generalize to novel obstacle courses with different physical properties. Parkour videos at https://extreme-parkour.github.io/

Key facts. Cited by 120 papers in the map (data through 7 Oct 2026). Builds on 28 of its 47 references that are in the map. First posted on arXiv 25 Sep 2023.

Builds on

28 of 47 references.

References · 28

  1. 2017Proximal Policy Optimization Algorithmscited by 14,441
  2. 2020Learning Quadrupedal Locomotion over Challenging Terraincited by 494
  3. 2021RMA: Rapid Motor Adaptation for Legged Robotscited by 430
  4. 2021Learning to Walk in Minutes Using Massively Parallel Deep Reinforcement Learningcited by 395
  5. 2022DayDreamer: World Models for Physical Robot Learningcited by 372
  6. 2022Learning robust perceptive locomotion for quadrupedal robots in the wildcited by 299
  7. 2022Legged Locomotion in Challenging Terrains using Egocentric Visioncited by 131
  8. 2022Rapid Locomotion via Reinforcement Learningcited by 130
  9. 2023Robot Parkour Learningcited by 115
  10. 2023ANYmal Parkour: Learning Agile Navigation for Quadrupedal Robotscited by 105
  11. 2022Deep Whole-Body Control: Learning a Unified Policy for Manipulation and Locomotioncited by 98
  12. 2021Reinforcement Learning for Robust Parameterized Locomotion Control of Bipedal Robotscited by 95
16 more
  1. 2021Learning Vision-Guided Quadrupedal Locomotion End-to-End with Cross-Modal Transformerscited by 71
  2. 2021Minimizing Energy Consumption Leads to the Emergence of Gaits in Legged Robotscited by 67
  3. 2021Legged Robots that Keep on Learning: Fine-Tuning Locomotion Policies in the Real Worldcited by 64
  4. 2019Learning Fast Adaptation with Meta Strategy Optimizationcited by 46
  5. 2019DeepGait: Planning and Control of Quadrupedal Gaits using Deep Reinforcement Learningcited by 45
  6. 2023Neural Volumetric Memory for Visual Locomotion Controlcited by 40
  7. 2021Learning to Jump from Pixelscited by 39
  8. 2022Advanced Skills by Learning Locomotion and Local Navigation End-to-Endcited by 39
  9. 2023Legs as Manipulator: Pushing Quadrupedal Agility Beyond Locomotioncited by 30
  10. 2023Robust and Versatile Bipedal Jumping Control through Reinforcement Learningcited by 27
  11. 2023Learning and Adapting Agile Locomotion Skills by Transferring Experiencecited by 25
  12. 2022ViNL: Visual Navigation and Locomotion Over Obstaclescited by 19
  13. 2021Vision-Guided Quadrupedal Locomotion in the Wild with Multi-Modal Delay Randomizationcited by 18
  14. 2022Learning Perception-Aware Agile Flight in Cluttered Environmentscited by 13
  15. 2022Learning Deep Sensorimotor Policies for Vision-based Autonomous Drone Racingcited by 13
  16. 2022Dynamic Bipedal Maneuvers through Sim-to-Real Reinforcement Learningcited by 3

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Cited by year (2026 to 7 Oct)

Citing papers per year: 2023: 2; 2024: 41; 2025: 46; 2026: 31.

120 papers.

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  1. 2024Open-TeleVision: Teleoperation with Immersive Active Visual Feedbackcited by 137
  2. 2024Expressive Whole-Body Control for Humanoid Robotscited by 117
  3. 2023Toward General-Purpose Robots via Foundation Models: A Survey and Meta-Analysiscited by 99
  4. 2024SplatSim: Zero-Shot Sim2Real Transfer of RGB Manipulation Policies Using Gaussian Splattingcited by 63
  5. 2024Visual Whole-Body Control for Legged Loco-Manipulationcited by 58
  6. 2024Agile But Safe: Learning Collision-Free High-Speed Legged Locomotioncited by 53
  7. 2025AMO: Adaptive Motion Optimization for Hyper-Dexterous Humanoid Whole-Body Controlcited by 47
  8. 2024Mobile-TeleVision: Predictive Motion Priors for Humanoid Whole-Body Controlcited by 41
  9. 2024One Policy to Run Them All: an End-to-end Learning Approach to Multi-Embodiment Locomotioncited by 34
  10. 2025BeamDojo: Learning Agile Humanoid Locomotion on Sparse Footholdscited by 32
  11. 2025RSL-RL: A Learning Library for Robotics Researchcited by 28
  12. 2025Crossing the Human-Robot Embodiment Gap with Sim-to-Real RL using One Human Demonstrationcited by 27
38 more
  1. 2024Learning Smooth Humanoid Locomotion through Lipschitz-Constrained Policiescited by 26
  2. 2024Learning Quadruped Locomotion Using Differentiable Simulationcited by 22
  3. 2024Mamba Policy: Towards Efficient 3D Diffusion Policy with Hybrid Selective State Modelscited by 22
  4. 2024Local Policies Enable Zero-shot Long-horizon Manipulationcited by 21
  5. 2025Learning Getting-Up Policies for Real-World Humanoid Robotscited by 21
  6. 2024Continuously Improving Mobile Manipulation with Autonomous Real-World RLcited by 20
  7. 2025VR-Robo: A Real-to-Sim-to-Real Framework for Visual Robot Navigation and Locomotioncited by 20
  8. 2024Learning Force Control for Legged Manipulationcited by 19
  9. 2024Neural MP: A Generalist Neural Motion Plannercited by 18
  10. 2024SAPG: Split and Aggregate Policy Gradientscited by 17
  11. 2024World Model-based Perception for Visual Legged Locomotioncited by 17
  12. 2025MoE-Loco: Mixture of Experts for Multitask Locomotioncited by 17
  13. 2025Towards Autonomous Micromobility through Scalable Urban Simulationcited by 16
  14. 2025Learning coordinated badminton skills for legged manipulatorscited by 16
  15. 2024Learning Visual Quadrupedal Loco-Manipulation from Demonstrationscited by 15
  16. 2024Commonsense Reasoning for Legged Robot Adaptation with Vision-Language Modelscited by 15
  17. 2024Learning Robot Soccer from Egocentric Vision with Deep Reinforcement Learningcited by 14
  18. 2024Eurekaverse: Environment Curriculum Generation via Large Language Modelscited by 14
  19. 2025LocoFormer: Generalist Locomotion via Long-context Adaptationcited by 14
  20. 2025DreamControl: Human-Inspired Whole-Body Humanoid Control for Scene Interaction via Guided Diffusioncited by 13
  21. 2025Opening the Sim-to-Real Door for Humanoid Pixel-to-Action Policy Transfercited by 13
  22. 2026Perceptive Humanoid Parkour: Chaining Dynamic Human Skills via Motion Matchingcited by 13
  23. 2024RobotKeyframing: Learning Locomotion with High-Level Objectives via Mixture of Dense and Sparse Rewardscited by 12
  24. 2025Towards Embodiment Scaling Laws in Robot Locomotioncited by 12
  25. 2024CaT: Constraints as Terminations for Legged Locomotion Reinforcement Learningcited by 11
  26. 2025Manipulation as in Simulation: Enabling Accurate Geometry Perception in Robotscited by 11
  27. 2025Learning Massively Multitask World Models for Continuous Controlcited by 11
  28. 2025Learning Sim-to-Real Humanoid Locomotion in 15 Minutescited by 11
  29. 2026Hiking in the Wild: A Scalable Perceptive Parkour Framework for Humanoidscited by 11
  30. 2024SoloParkour: Constrained Reinforcement Learning for Visual Locomotion from Privileged Experiencecited by 10
  31. 2024Stage-Wise Reward Shaping for Acrobatic Robots: A Constrained Multi-Objective Reinforcement Learning Approachcited by 10
  32. 2025A Unified and General Humanoid Whole-Body Controller for Versatile Locomotioncited by 10
  33. 2025ArticuBot: Learning Universal Articulated Object Manipulation Policy via Large Scale Simulationcited by 10
  34. 2024Rethinking Robustness Assessment: Adversarial Attacks on Learning-based Quadrupedal Locomotion Controllerscited by 9
  35. 2024Guided Reinforcement Learning for Robust Multi-Contact Loco-Manipulationcited by 9
  36. 2024Learning Multi-Agent Loco-Manipulation for Long-Horizon Quadrupedal Pushingcited by 9
  37. 2024Helpful DoggyBot: Open-World Object Fetching using Legged Robots and Vision-Language Modelscited by 8
  38. 2024One Filter to Deploy Them All: Robust Safety for Quadrupedal Navigation in Unknown Environmentscited by 8

50 most cited of 120 All 120 (JSON)