Disney Unveils New Interactive Experience with Star Wars Robots

Interacting with robots is usually limited to science fiction movies. However, with the magic of Disney and the support of advanced robots, this experience has come to Disney parks.

Last fall, Disney parks tested free-roaming BD-X robots for the first time in the "Star Wars: Galaxy's Edge" at Disney parks. These robots quickly won the love of visitors with their cute behavior.

This week, Disney announced that these robots will reappear at Disney parks to celebrate the "Season of the Force". This is a seasonal celebration of "Star Wars" held at Disney parks, starting from April 5th and lasting until June 2nd.

These robots are designed to express emotions and move in a way similar to children. To create these movements, the robots were brought to a simulated laboratory, where they learned the movements created by animators, according to Moritz Bachmann, Deputy Director of Disney Research Lab.

Then, in order to teach bipedal robots these behaviors, they are rewarded when they closely follow the movements specified by animators, Bachmann added. This process is called reinforcement learning, which is a common method used to train robots and machine learning models.

OpenAI's famous chatbot ChatGPT is trained using a similar method called Reinforcement Learning from Human Feedback (RLHF), which fine-tunes the model based on human feedback.

Another key component that brings these "duck-like robots" to life is the development of their walking movements, which appear to be bouncing and jumping in the park - this requires a lot of balance.

Visitors are excited, and many have shared videos of their interactions with robots in the park.

In addition to Disney parks, the field of robotics is also in an exciting period. Just this week, a report citing insider sources revealed that Apple is developing two AI-driven home robots. One of the robots will serve as a mobile assistant, following users around and helping with daily tasks, bringing home robots closer to reality.