It’s not surprising that Disney would want to create a robot that would be safe for children to play with—and, fittingly, that’s just what DisneyResearchHub shows off in the video above. The kidproof bot is controlled by a nearby human, and it’s incredibly responsive. Most importantly, though, it’s also very, very gentle.
The robot is animated by hydrostatic transmission—a method of pressurizing and releasing a custom water/air mix in hydraulic tubes—which makes the robot’s limbs move. (Hydrostatic transmission is typically used with heavy-duty machinery.) The operator wears a control mechanism that mirrors the robot’s structure, so as the human moves, so does the robot. Haptic feedback is built into the human operator’s hand controls to provide tactile feedback whenever the robot’s hand makes contact with objects (or kids). The robot also has a stereo camera instead of eyes, allowing the human to use telepresence to see what the robot “sees.”
In addition to convincingly mimicking the operator’s human movements, the precision with which the Disney bot can be controlled is truly impressive. Capable of delicately lifting an egg and then breaking it onto a plate, as well as having precise enough control to thread a needle, the robot is also gentle enough to hold a child’s cheeks in its “hands.”
