Kiwi from Disney Imagineering is a walking robot that will make you believe in Groot
Just imagine: the curtain rises and little Groot walks toward you and waves. It is not a costume, but a real robot. Unlike the figures in Disney parks, it does not stay in one place. It walks freely straight toward you, tethered only by a thin cable used for programming.
The robot's gait is smooth, its arms swing realistically, and its feet stand firmly on the ground. The little figure's body sways just as it should. This is Project Kiwi, a free-walking robot actor, the first of its kind for Disney and a new milestone in robotics.
The robot has precise textures on its face, arms and legs. It wears a worn flight suit that Marvel fans remember from the films. Expressive eyes look directly at you. It was deliberately created at child scale. WDI researchers and roboticists spent the last three years developing a robot that looks like Groot and stands about 75 cm tall.
This version of Kiwi looks like Groot, but it is important to note that it is first and foremost a platform, so it can take a very different form. During development it is important to have a target character that can show whether you have reached the set level of believability.
Kiwi is still in development. There is much work left on how the robot interacts with people, but WDI has no plans to put it into the parks any time soon. The head of Project Kiwi and executive vice president of the Advanced Development Studio told TechCrunch how the platform has taken shape over the last few years.
“Project Kiwi started about three years ago to find out how we can bring our small characters to life at their real scale in authentic ways. This is an exciting time for bipedal robotics, and with an incredible team and our combination of technology, artistry and magic, we are bringing to life characters that could exist nowhere but at Disney”
The ultimate goal for Kiwi was clear from the start: the character must walk on its own and interact with park guests. Unfortunately, because of the figure's scale and complexity and the demands of interaction and walking, no standard platforms fit. In fact, there are only a few truly viable bipedal robotics platforms in the world, and the vast majority of them are built for industrial applications.
Imagineering turned to R&D and LaValley's team. LaValley came to Disney from Boston Dynamics, where he worked on the first version of the bipedal robot Atlas. The core of his new project was the need for a battery-powered bipedal robot that could be programmed to interact autonomously with park guests. The team needed three years to build exactly what was required.
To make the robot small, researchers first had to build a custom frame with room for every motor and actuator while keeping its humanoid form, so that it could be "dressed" as any character.
The metal frame is hollow along its entire length, allowing air to pass through the body and cool the motors and all the mechanisms. Although there is some audible noise, even at this early stage it is very low, which makes it possible to play sound through a speaker for speech. The legs use a system with a kinetic counterweight that shifts the force of movement and foot placement, making motions more energy-efficient and faster.
To minimize the number of wires throughout Kiwi, the team created a set of origami-style boards connected by built-in flexible cables. Engineers built all the actuators (they determine how a limb moves) from scratch.
The next step for Project Kiwi is to make the robot able to sense and smoothly react to sudden external forces (when it is hugged or people want to take a photo with it), while staying upright and keeping a natural appearance.
The current software prototype has a set of predefined behavior modes with a timeline that allows programming new behaviors and actions. After a number of refinements, Groot's "mood" should show in his gait.
At one moment he jumps, waving his arms to show happiness. A minute later his arms and head droop and he walks slowly forward: the robot is sad. Although Groot's expressive eyes are already captivating, engineers are working on a sensor package that will let Kiwi better understand the surrounding world and recognize people's faces.
The main goal of the project is to bring beloved characters from Disney stories into the guest space, turning the parks into a living experience rather than a single ride through a dark room. It must be done so that the robots are sincere and make guests believe in their realism. With platforms like Kiwi, the company really has a chance to make the parks a living home for characters rather than a tightly controlled attraction environment.
