Olaf: Bringing an Animated Character to Life in the Physical World
4 months ago
- #reinforcement-learning
- #character-animation
- #robotics
- Olaf is an animated character brought to life in the physical world using robotics.
- The design hides two asymmetric legs under a soft foam skirt to create the illusion of movement.
- Spherical and planar linkages are used in the arms, mouth, and eyes to fit actuators inside the character.
- Reinforcement learning guided by animation references is used for control.
- Additional rewards are introduced to reduce impact noise from the walk cycle.
- Temperature values are fed as inputs to policies to prevent actuator overheating.
- The efficacy of the modeling is validated in simulation and on hardware.
- The project demonstrates an unmatched level of believability for a costumed robotic character.