The snow treasure that can walk and talk is here! Disney releases a new generation of character robots

Walt Disney Imagineering has officially unveiled the next-generation robot based on Olaf in Frozen, which is scheduled to be officially unveiled at Disneyland Paris and Hong Kong Disneyland in early 2026.

According to Kyle Laughlin, senior vice president of research and development at Walt Disney Imagineering, the team used a reinforcement learning framework to restore the animated image of the snowball, such as a rounded snowball body, movable mouth, eyes and carrot nose. The development team learned to maintain a stylized walking posture while wearing heavy, easily deformable "snow" clothing and hardware limitations by repeatedly imitating the animator's actions through trial and error in the virtual environment. In addition, the Snow Treasure Robot achieves a fully movable mouth, eyes, and the iconic detachable carrot nose with conversational interactions, making it one of the most complex and realistic animated character robots to date.

The birth of the snow treasure robot is largely due to Disney's previous accumulation in BD-X robots. BD-X is an entertainment-oriented bipedal robot with a design inspired by "WALL-E" from "Robot Story". The core control technology is based on reinforcement learning, and through training in a simulated environment, the robot can imitate the agile posture of animated characters and adapt to complex terrain, and it is also equipped with antennas, luminous eyes and other components to enhance emotional expression, successfully bringing animated characters into the real world.

In order to provide a strong computing power foundation for the training of such complex robots, Disney has partnered with NVIDIA and Google's DeepMind to jointly develop an open-source simulation framework called Newton, which is centered on the building blocks that can quickly develop graphics processing unit (GPU) accelerated simulators. Lauflin specifically mentioned that the Kamino simulator developed by the team based on the Newton framework will unlock the potential of reinforcement learning on ultra-complex robotic systems, greatly accelerating the creation process of new characters.

In fact, Walt Disney Imagineering's ambitions have long been beyond the screen, and they are working to bring characters from movies and animations to life. As early as the 60s of the 20th century, Disneyland in California launched sound animatronics robot dolls. With the advancement of technology, the drive method has evolved from pneumatic/hydraulic to more precise motor drive, making the movements of characters such as "Saman of Songs" smoother and more realistic. In order to meet visitors' expectations for higher interactivity, Disney then developed stunt robots that can perform high-altitude stunts, such as Spider-Man, who can tos in the air.

Starting with the Project Kiwi project in 2018, Disney officially entered the field of humanoid robots. The project successfully created a prototype of a bipedal robot that can walk freely, maintain balance, and express emotions. From BDX robots, robot assistants H.E.R.B.I.E. to today's snow treasure robots, Disney is bringing more emotional and expressive characters to theme parks around the world.

Laughlin emphasizes that the starting point of all this is always the story itself. "We think about what kind of emotional experience we want our guests to feel. The technology should be advanced enough to be invisible to guests so that they can focus on sharing the emotional experience with the characters they care about. ”

"We're just getting started," Laughlin said, "and we'll continue to expand the technology in the future, allowing more characters to come into visitors' field of vision in unexpected ways." ”