Machinery / Industrial Parts & Tools

In 1956, Walt Disney Imagineering (Walt Disney Imagineering, hereinafter referred to as WDI) was established in California Disneyland. At first, WDI's business was responsible for the design and construction of Disney theme parks around the world. With the continuous advancement of technology, in order to make Disney theme parks better cater to visitors, WDI continues to add new businesses to the theme parks to improve entertainment.

Over time, WDI currently has more than 140 jobs, including illustrators, architects, engineers, lighting designers, show screenwriters, graphic designers, etc. But in fact, WDI has long been dissatisfied with just letting science fiction characters only stay on the screen. They want to show these characters that should belong to movies and animations in reality.

In 2018, WDI's Project Kiwi was launched. This is a dynamic humanoid robot with interactivity at the same time. This robot is about 0.75 meters tall, can rotate horizontally 50 degrees, and still maintain balance. The cable connected to the rear of the robot is used for control, not for power transmission. When fully charged, Project Kiwi can run for 45 minutes.

In order to make the robot more in line with the character characteristics under Disney's copyright, Project Kiwi can perform actions ranging from fast and expressive to extremely slow and nuanced. This requires the development of customized high-speed actuators that have torque and are placed in a mechanical structure. Each actuator is also equipped with a mechanical clutch and an on-line torque sensor to support low stiffness control, thereby achieving compliant interaction and reducing vibration.

Compared with other humanoid robots, it is not common for WDI to install customized hardware in Project Kiwi. For example, the clavicle and the shoulder have only five degrees of freedom to support the shoulder shrug function, and have an extended configuration space for displaying natural gestures. Project Kiwi is also equipped with a mobile processor to support interactive behavior.

The size of Porject Kiwi is only 0.75 meters, but the internal structure of this robot is far superior to other humanoid robots of the same size. Therefore, WDI faces severe challenges in terms of packaging and component selection. Of course, there is no perfect solution, and WDI has made a compromise in design for this. For example, in order to reduce the size, WDI hardly uses wires and connectors, and the whole robot relies on a circuit board that contains both rigid and flexible material properties. But this kind of circuit board is very complicated, and the cost and manufacturing time are also greatly increased. At the same time, Project Kiwi will also increase the size of the hip and knee actuators according to the character's packaging.

From a software perspective, WDI spent a lot of time developing motion planning and animation tools, so that animators could write stylized gaits, gestures and expressions for Project Kiwi. But unlike the characters on the screen, the laws of physics cannot be changed. Therefore, Project Kiwi is currently limited to stylized walking and dancing on a flat ground, but in the future it will increase stairs and other movements.

Project Kiwi project leader Scott LaValley said that based on experience, artists and animators also play an important role in giving life a new vision. "We often draw inspiration from the world of character animation and game development. Although robot characters are more restricted than virtual characters, we are solving many of the same problems. Another technique is to use motion research early in the design process (through animation, Motion capture and/or simulation tools) to generate performance-driven requirements for any new robot."

More than one

When all audiences are immersed in Disney's CG technology, the true meaning of the company is far more than that. In 2013, Disney developed a rapid skeleton design tool, which is a mechatronics robot that uses a mask to hide bearings, connectors and other components, and then drives the tool to move through power, so that the robot can move directly. The trajectory is displayed on the canvas, which greatly reduces the animation production process.

At that time, Disney used this set of tools to design ten animated characters, and seven were finally completed. In each case, it took less than half an hour for the characters to complete the work according to their wishes. In the past, hand-painting frame by frame has improved the efficiency hundreds of times. And all the parts involved are 3D printed, and the production cost is much lower than traditional hand-painted.

In 2016, Disney introduced Jimmy, a hydraulically driven robot. Jimmy does not have the motors and gears commonly used in humanoid robots. Instead, it relies on a hydraulic actuator independently developed by Disney to drive it. Not only that, compared to using coupling to drive power, because the hydraulic valve is used directly as the driving device, Jimmy's flexibility is much higher than that of the electric drive robot at the same time.

In 2020, Disney is not satisfied with only making the skeleton into a robot, so it has developed the expression robot Gaze. It is emphasized that it can truly simulate human facial expressions, especially expressing eye expressions and emotions vividly in the form of natural blinking of the eyes.

Through the camera on the chest and computer vision technology, Gaze can perceive and interact with the person standing in front of it, as well as the facial expressions of the person. Gaze's design focuses on the subtle facial expressions, including the gaze direction of the eyeballs, blinking frequency, or head-turning movements that can simulate human natural behavior. At the same time, when a human approaches, Gaze will automatically respond.

Business enlightenment

The robots developed by Disney have common characteristics. The purpose of these robots is to perform, and these robots are based on humans or animals. On the other hand, these robots are all customized, but they are also general-purpose robots. Customization is that each robot will not be mass-produced, and their production and manufacturing have a clear and single purpose. The general purpose is that these robots have a strong ability to expand. Once they are wrapped in a role and coordinated with the corresponding motion planning, they will immediately become that role.

Disney is the world's leading enterprise in the entertainment field, and its eight major IPs are worth nearly 400 billion U.S. dollars. And its true technical connotation even surpasses most robot companies.

Take "Avengers 4" as an example, the filming cost of the film is 365 million U.S. dollars. Among them, special effects expenditure is less than 150 million U.S. dollars, accounting for less than 40%. Another movie "Avatar", which is well-known for special effects, has a total investment of 237 million U.S. dollars, and special effects exceed 150 million U.S. dollars, accounting for 63%.

"Avatar" was released in 2009, and "Avengers 4" was released in 2019. Even though the special effects of the former are amazing, there is still a huge gap in the expressiveness of the special effects technology on the screen of the two films that are 10 years apart. It is precisely because of the convenience brought by robot technology that Disney has more means to display and lower shooting costs.

This kind of robot specially designed for film and television special effects has not been used on a large scale at present, and even only Disney in the world is using robot technology to make movies. Traditional film and television companies, such as Paramount and 20th Century Fox, still use pure special effects technology.

It is true that the development of humanoid robots is very complicated, and there are many interdisciplinary subjects involved. According to the report of the International Federation of Robotics (IFR), the shipment of industrial robots in 2019 fell by 16.9% compared with 2018. Among them, the two largest robot purchasing countries in the Asia-Pacific region: China and Japan, fell 9% and 10% respectively.

In the robot market, another robot with high shipments and high installation volume is service robots. In 2020, the global shipment of this type of robot is 240,000 units, an increase of 31% over 2019. Its main growth point is logistics robots. The total number of logistics robots in 2019 will be 75,000 units and 114,000 units in 2020. In addition, public environment robots, military robots and other fields are all growing slowly.

From a technical point of view, it is true that the innovation of 5G technology and artificial intelligence technology allows robots to have higher intelligence and more functions. But so far, the existing robots on the market still do not have much different technologies than traditional robots. Therefore, industrial robots have shown saturation, and server robots are difficult to become rigidly needed.

Disney's robot development is tantamount to opening up a whole new market for the entire robot industry. In 2020, the global animation, visual effects and video game industries will have a market size of US$261 billion, and the cost of special effects will account for approximately 20% to 25% of the total production cost of works.

The cost of Project Kiwi is less than 100,000 US dollars per unit, and the price of related character costumes is about 100 US dollars. In contrast, Project Kiwi reduced the skeleton design in special effects production by more than $10 million (multi-character). In fact, the cost reduction brought by robots to film and television works is difficult to measure. In certain scenarios, robots can even be used to completely replace special effects technology.

There is a saying on the Internet that "the whole world is urging you to grow up, and only Disney guards your inner fairy tale". However, Disney’s approach to guarding is also advancing with the times.