Disney Research, Zurich, Switzerland

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Disney Research is a network of research labs supporting The Walt Disney Company.
It has facilities in Los Angeles, Zurich and Edinburgh.

Website - disneyresearch.com

youtube.com/DisneyResearchHub

linkedin.com/company/disney-research

Disney Research on Wikipedia

Projects:

suggesting sounds for images from video collections

VertiGo, wall-climbing robot

Interactive design of 3D-printable robotic creatures

Printed Soft Skin for Human-Robot Interaction

Bipedal robot that walks like an animation character, Disney Research Pittsburgh, USA

BeachBot, sand art robot

Pixelbots
 
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Interactive Air-Powered Robot Arm

Published on Oct 9, 2014

We have developed a new method for puppeteers to remotely control mechanical characters without the use of motors. The pair of robot arms shown in this video are connected only by flexible pneumatic tubing. There are no pumps, valves, sensors, motors, or electronic controllers used. The passive connection between the two arms is made entirely by air pressure, allowing a large separation between the character and the puppeteer, and tight bends in the air control lines. The key technology is an ultra-low friction pneumatic transmission, enabled by the use of rolling diaphragm seals, instead of traditional sliding o-ring seals. If motorized, the transmission allows the motors to be placed in the body, rather than mounted to the arm, leaving the arms much lighter, and capable of faster and more graceful motion. The robot arm in this video was designed and built by Tianyao Chen, Peter Whitney, and Jessica Hodgins.
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Playing Catch and Juggling with a Humanoid Robot

Published on Nov 20, 2012

Robots in entertainment environments typically do not allow for physical interaction and contact with people. However, catching and throwing back objects is one form of physical engagement that still maintains a safe distance between the robot and participants. Using an animatronic humanoid robot, we developed a test bed for a throwing and catching game scenario. We use an external camera system (ASUS Xtion PRO LIVE) to locate balls and a Kalman ?lter to predict ball destination and timing. The robot's hand and joint-space are calibrated to the vision coordinate system using a least-squares technique, such that the hand can be positioned to the predicted location. Successful catches are thrown back two and a half meters forward to the participant, and missed catches are detected to trigger suitable animations that indicate failure. Human to robot partner juggling (three ball cascade pattern, one hand for each partner) is also achieved by speeding up the catching/throwing cycle. We tested the throwing/catching system on six participants (one child and ?ve adults, including one elderly), and the juggling system on three skilled jugglers.
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A hybrid hydrostatic transmission and human safe haptic telepresence robot

Published on May 12, 2016

We present a new type of hydrostatic transmission that uses a hybrid air-water configuration, analogous to N+1 cable-tendon transmissions, using N hydraulic lines and 1 pneumatic line for a system with N degrees of freedom (DOFs). The common air-filled line preloads all DOFs in the system, allowing bidirectional operation of every joint. This configuration achieves the high stiffness of a water-filled transmission with half the number of bulky hydraulic lines. We implemented this transmission using pairs of rolling-diaphragm cylinders to form rotary hydraulic actuators, with a new design achieving a 600-percent increase in specific work density per cycle. These actuators were used to build a humanoid robot with two 4-DOF arms, connected via the hydrostatic transmission to an identical master. Stereo cameras mounted on a 2-DOF servo-controlled neck stream live video to the operator’s head-mounted display, which in turn sends the real-time attitude of the operator’s head to the neck servos in the robot. The operator is visually immersed in the robot’s physical workspace, and through the bilateral coupling of the low-impedance hydrostatic transmission, directly feels interaction forces between the robot and external environment. We qualitatively assessed the performance of this system for remote object manipulation and use as a platform to safely study physical human-robot interaction.
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