Abstract: A robot design and control system including a procedural animation engine and a graphical animation editor that enable animators to author stylized walking gaits achievable by physical robotic characters, including bipedal robots of varying design. The animation engine generates dynamically feasible reference trajectories for omnidirectional walking given a desired walking velocity that may be input from a joystick or an artificial intelligence (AI) planner. This allows a legged robot to walk along an arbitrary path while expressing a custom animation “style,” e.g., a happy walk, a sneaky walk, or other manner of walking. The stylized walking motion or gait is generalized by the animation engine from a small number of animation samples that are defined at key walking velocities and tracked using a whole-body controller. The set of samples that are used as input to define a walking style is authored by an animator using the animation editor.

Abstract: A robot actor, or character mobility hardware platform, adapted to unleash or provide a wide variety of characters in the physical world. The robot actor enables the often screen-constrained characters to become life-like, interactive participants with nearby people in ways not presently achievable. The robot actor is an untethered, free-roaming robot that is has two (or more) legs, is adapted for high dexterity, is controlled and designed to be self-balancing, and, due to this combination of characteristics, the robot can provide characters with an illusion of life and, in many cases, in correct proportion and scale. The hardware and software of the robot actor will become a new generation of animatronic figures by providing a hardware platform capable of continuously evolving to become more capable through advances in controls and artificial intelligence (AI).

Abstract: A robot actor, or character mobility hardware platform, adapted to unleash or provide a wide variety of characters in the physical world. The robot actor enables the often screen-constrained characters to become life-like, interactive participants with nearby people in ways not presently achievable. The robot actor is an untethered, free-roaming robot that is has two (or more) legs, is adapted for high dexterity, is controlled and designed to be self-balancing, and, due to this combination of characteristics, the robot can provide characters with an illusion of life and, in many cases, in correct proportion and scale. The hardware and software of the robot actor will become a new generation of animatronic figures by providing a hardware platform capable of continuously evolving to become more capable through advances in controls and artificial intelligence (AI).

Abstract: A robot actor, or character mobility hardware platform, adapted to unleash or provide a wide variety of characters in the physical world. The robot actor enables the often screen-constrained characters to become life-like, interactive participants with nearby people in ways not presently achievable. The robot actor is an untethered, free-roaming robot that is has two (or more) legs, is adapted for high dexterity, is controlled and designed to be self-balancing, and, due to this combination of characteristics, the robot can provide characters with an illusion of life and, in many cases, in correct proportion and scale. The hardware and software of the robot actor will become a new generation of animatronic figures by providing a hardware platform capable of continuously evolving to become more capable through advances in controls and artificial intelligence (AI).