Disney researchers are developing a new audio-animatronic figure with subtle eye and head movements that could allow characters like Captain Jack Sparrow and Kylo Ren in Disneyland and Disney World attractions to engage in more lifelike human-robot interactions.
The next-generation audio-animatronic was developed by Walt Disney Imagineering’s Advanced Development team, Disney Research innovation lab, California Institute of Technology and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, according to a new research paper entitled “Realistic and Interactive Robot Gaze.”
Disney has a long history of deploying audio-animatronic figures that perform a series of repetitive functions thousands of times a day in theme park attractions ranging from Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln to Pirates of the Caribbean to Haunted Mansion to Rise of the Resistance.
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Disney’s next-gen “realistic gaze” animatronic figure uses a chest-mounted sensor to identify people so the robot can turn to face and engage with them. A series of smaller motions allow the highly animated and articulated robot to create the illusion of life. The animatronic’s head rises and falls subtly to simulate breathing. Quick, darting eye movements by the animatronic create the illusion of examining a person’s entire face. The animatronic can momentarily shift its gaze in reaction to a sudden sound in the distance before refocusing on a person’s face.
The aim of the next-gen project is to develop an audio-animatronic figure that emulates the mutual gaze between humans.
“Gaze has been shown to be a key social signal, shaping perceptions of interaction partners,” according to the Disney research paper. “For example, people who make more eye contact with us are perceived to be similar to us as well as more intelligent, conscientious, sincere and trustworthy. Furthermore, gaze appears to also convey complex social and emotional states.”
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The research team used the principles employed by Disney character animators to create the illusion of life rather than attempt to mimic complex human actions.
“Animation is more forgiving in that it allows for exaggerations of human qualities to create memorable and enjoyable characters,” according to the Disney research paper.
Imagineering’s next-gen animatronic figures mimic Disney cartoon characters that travel in arched trajectories, have body parts that move at different speeds and accelerate and decelerate slower than humans.
“Such traditional animation techniques form the foundation for our method of inducing realism for our robot character,” according to the Disney research paper.
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Technology publications like Gizmodo that reported on the latest Disney research paper fixated on the unsettling and scary skinless and lipless appearance of the animatronic robot prototype dressed in a collared shirt that looks like “pure, unfiltered nightmare material.”
The next-gen animatronics with the lifelike gaze are not expected to appear in Disney theme parks for several years. But other new animatronics from Imagineering are heading to Disney’s Anaheim theme parks soon.
A new high-flying web-slinging animatronic from Disney’s research and development team is expected to debut with the opening of Avengers Campus at Disney California Adventure. A Spider-Man stuntronic robot will fly through the air, strike aerial poses and calculate trajectories to hit a prescribed target using on-board hardware in the new pandemic-delayed Marvel-themed land.
