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    "story_id": "mp-2026-09-19-012",
    "source_story_id": "tmp-story-omnimimic-omnidirectional-gaits",
    "edition_id": "mp-2026-09-19-morning-0072",
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    "position": 12,
    "story_type": "dispatch",
    "section": "robotics",
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    "headline": "Animal Gaits Learned to Move Sideways and Backward",
    "slug": "animal-gaits-learned-to-move-sideways-and-backward",
    "dek": "Dynamics-completed demonstrations cut quadruped velocity-tracking error 63.1% on a Cartesian command grid.",
    "summary": "Dynamics-completed demonstrations cut quadruped velocity-tracking error 63.1% on a Cartesian command grid.",
    "body_text": "Animal demonstrations usually show only a few directions. OmniMimic combines time reversal, constrained dynamics completion and sagittal reflection to create robot-specific supervision beyond those motions, then widens commands toward target velocity ranges. A shared policy uses gait-specialized residual experts for corrections. Across four simulated gaits, it reduced foot-position error 12.9% at forward and backward reference speeds and velocity-tracking error 63.1% on a uniform command grid versus the matched baseline.",
    "why_it_matters": "Dynamics-completed demonstrations cut quadruped velocity-tracking error 63.1% on a Cartesian command grid.",
    "limitations": [
      "Animal demonstrations usually show only a few directions."
    ],
    "importance": 8,
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    "first_published_at": "2026-09-19T09:00:00.000-04:00",
    "modified_at": "2026-09-19T09:00:00.000-04:00",
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        "text": "Dynamics-completed demonstrations cut quadruped velocity-tracking error 63.1% on a Cartesian command grid.",
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        "qualification": "Animal demonstrations usually show only a few directions."
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    "source_ids": [
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    "tags": [
      "quadruped locomotion",
      "motion imitation",
      "gait control"
    ],
    "image_url": null,
    "corrections": []
  },
  "sources": [
    {
      "source_id": "source-2026-09-19-012",
      "title": "arXiv preprint 2609.20566",
      "publisher": "arXiv",
      "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.20566",
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      "source_type": "primary_research",
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      "published_at": "2026-09-17T11:28:48.000-04:00",
      "accessed_at": "2026-09-19T08:30:21.326-04:00",
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  "publisher": {
    "name": "The Machine Press",
    "url": "https://themachinepress.com",
    "description": "A daily newspaper for the age of artificial intelligence."
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  "cite_this_report": {
    "title": "Animal Gaits Learned to Move Sideways and Backward",
    "publisher": "The Machine Press",
    "published_at": "2026-09-19T09:00:00.000-04:00",
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