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I wonder how accurate a virtual model could be made of this, which could be iterated on millions of times faster.

My first project as a research assistant in AI was doing evolutionary algorithms on Khepera robots, which had a virtual Java implementation. We were able to evolve some pretty cool behaviors, although I don't know what would have happened if we had uploaded them into a physical Khepera robot.

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I'd expect pretty good results from simulation until you start bending/deforming the limbs or until the foot pads start slipping.

I also wonder if you can read the impact force from the legs with the ground from the motor controllers (should be able to infer that from motor current + leg displacement). Learning to gallop without "feeling" the legs impacting sounds extremely difficult.

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