Imagineers at Disneyland’s Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge are currently conducting tests on free-roaming robotic characters. Star Wars BD-1 Like Robot Makes Debut in New Adorable Video from Walt Disney Imagineering. Disney Research team presented a brand new robotic character during their evening keynote address, and then a few days later the robots made their debut at Disneyland’s Star Wars Galaxy’s Edge.
“Developed by the galaxy’s brightest minds, the latest free-roaming robotic characters are being tested by Imagineers in Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge at @disneyland today. A part of Disney’s robotic character pipeline, Imagineers have teamed up with animators to design characters capable of great balance and highly expressive motions.”
Related: Star Wars BD-1 Like Robot Makes Debut in New Adorable Video from Walt Disney Imagineering
The adorable robot packs an enormous amount of expression into its child-size body, from its highly expressive head and two wiggly antennae to its stubby little legs. But what sets this robot apart from other small bipeds is how it walks—it’s full of personality, emoting as it moves in a way that makes it seem uniquely alive.
“Designing a bipedal robotic character with an 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.
Like BD-1, it’s got a fairly compact, boxy little body, with a pair of stumpy, bird-like reverse legs, a flattish head with eyes, a temple-mounted flashlight, and a little pair of antennae. The head is capable of a wide range of articulation, and here’s where a lot of the personality comes in.
“Most roboticists are focused on getting their bipedal robots to reliably walk,” says Disney research scientist Morgan Pope, who helped present the robot on stage. “At Disney, that might not be enough—our robots may have to strut, prance, sneak, trot, or meander to convey the emotion that we need them to.” Disney has animators who are experts in making characters convey all of those emotions (and more) through movement, as well as roboticists who are experts in building mechanical systems. “What we try to bring to these kinds of robots is born from our history of character animation,” explains Michael Hopkins, a principal R&D engineer at Disney. “We have an animator embedded in our team, and together, we’re able to leverage their knowledge and our technical expertise to create the best performance we can.”
Automatronics
“Automatronics” is a project that gives our Audio-Animatronics® characters the intelligence to freely roam and to explore our theme parks. Automatronics detect the world around them and make their own decisions about where to go, what to do and how to interact with other characters and with the interesting humans they might encounter along the way.
Testing in Real Time
We want to fill our lands with a sense of kinetic energy and indigenous life — citizens that truly live in our story worlds. To achieve this, Walt Disney Imagineering Research & Development tested a prototype Automatronics character named “Jake” in Tomorrowland at Disneyland Park in California. This allowed the team to understand and enhance the art and technology of bringing autonomous characters to life in even the most unpredictable of conditions. And it allowed guests in the world of tomorrow to come face to face with a charmingly persistent droid.
