A New Approach to Disney’s Robotic Character Pipeline

Designing a bipedal robotic character with impeccable balance is impressive, but simply isn’t enough when you consider Disney characters strut, prance, sneak, tromp, shuffle, hustle, saunter or meander. Disney Research recently unveiled a new robotic character prototype that combines procedural animation, modular hardware, and reinforcement learning to be able to design and program a walking character capable of these unique gaits and traits. Even more impressive? They can do this within months, not years! The ability to have a new robot design learn to imitate artistic motion in a simulation environment before it’s being built advances Imagineering’s innovation pipeline … and we can’t wait to see what more can be done with this exploration! Visit the Imagineering WEBSITE: Follow Walt Disney Imagineering on INSTAGRAM: