Procedural animation engine and editor for sample-based design of stylized walking gaits for bipedal robots

Number: 12293445
Published: 2025-05-06
Filed: 2022-03-22
Assignee: DISNEY ENTERPRISES, INC.
Inventors: Hopkins; Michael Anthony et al.
CPC: B25J13/06; B25J5/00; B62D57/032; G06F3/04815; G06F3/04847; G06F30/20; G06T13/40
Verdict: High Hardware
Source: Google Patents · FreePatentsOnline

The keeper's note

Bipedal-robot walking-gait procedural-animation design engine (BDX/robotics cluster).

Abstract

A robot design and control system including a procedural animation engine and a graphical animation editor that enable animators to author stylized walking gaits achievable by physical robotic characters, including bipedal robots of varying design. The animation engine generates dynamically feasible reference trajectories for omnidirectional walking given a desired walking velocity that may be input from a joystick or an artificial intelligence (AI) planner. This allows a legged robot to walk along an arbitrary path while expressing a custom animation “style,” e.g., a happy walk, a sneaky walk, or other manner of walking. The stylized walking motion or gait is generalized by the animation engine from a small number of animation samples that are defined at key walking velocities and tracked using a whole-body controller. The set of samples that are used as input to define a walking style is authored by an animator using the animation editor.

Background

BACKGROUND 1. Field of the Description (1) The present description relates, in general, to robots (or “robotic systems” or “robotic characters”) and control systems and methods for such robots. More particularly, the description relates to methods and systems of generating control signals for a legged robotic system such as a bipedal robot (and to controllers implementing such a method and robotic systems or robots with such controllers) that facilitates procedural animation and sample-based design of stylized walking gaits with physical constraints. 2. Relevant Background (2) The control of humanoid or bipedal robots to provide stylized walking remains a challenging problem. Ideally, it is desirable to design creative authoring tools and control software that enable robotic characters that walk with the same fluidness and expressivity as their computer animated or human counterparts. The walking control problem is complicated by two main challenges. (3) First, walking gaits must satisfy the kinematic and dynamic constraints inherent to whole-body locomotion. For example, the rate of change of the character's momentum must be consistent with the forces imparted on each foot when in contact with the ground. Those forces must also satisfy certain friction constraints to prevent the foot from slipping during the support phase. While a walking animation for a virtual character can violate these constraints and still appear physically plausible to viewers, animation content that i

Claims

1. A system for providing stylized walking gaits for a legged robot, comprising: memory storing, for each animation style of a set of animation styles, a walking gait sample complying with kinematic and dynamic constraints associated with the legged robot at each of a plurality of velocities; a processor communicatively linked to the memory; and an animation engine provided by the processor running software, wherein the animation engine receives as user input a desired velocity for the legged robot, a selection of one of the animation styles, and a robot state for either the legged robot or a simulation of the legged robot, and wherein the animation engine generates actuator commands to animate the legged robot or the simulation of the legged robot with a stylized walking gait modifying the walking gait sample based on the desired velocity, the selected one of the animation styles, and the robot state. || 12. A system for providing stylized walking gaits for a target bipedal robot, comprising: memory storing, for each animation style of a set of animation styles, a walking gait sample complying with kinematic and dynamic constraints associated with the target bipedal robot at each of a plurality of velocities; a processor communicatively linked to the memory; and an animation editor provided by the processor running software, wherein the animation editor generates a graphical user interface (GUI), wherein the GUI includes a three dimensional (3D) visualizer displaying a 3D model of the target bipedal robot simulated with animation based on a set of actuator commands, and wherein the set of actuator commands animate the 3D model with a stylized walking gait modifying the walking gait sample based on a velocity and one of the animation styles selected by a user via interaction with the GUI. || 20. A method of designing a stylized walking gait for a bipedal robot, comprising: storing in memory storing, for each animation style of a set of animation styles, a walking gait sample complying with kinematic and dynamic constraints associated with the bipedal robot at each of a plurality of velocities; via a GUI, receiving user input indicating a desired velocity for the bipedal robot and a selection of one of the animation styles, and generating a set of actuator commands to animate the bipedal robot or a simulation of the bipedal robot with a stylized walking gait modifying the walking gait sample based on the desired velocity and the selected one of the animation styles; generating and displaying a 3D model of the simulation of the bipedal robot animated based on the set of actuator commands; via the GUI, receiving user input modifying at least one of the parameters, the desired velocity, or the selected one of the animation styles; and modifying the set of actuator commands based on the user input and then repeating the step of generating and displaying the 3D model of the simulation of the bipedal robot animated based on the modified set of actuator commands.