How the Fully Autonomous Mobilator Moves & Works on the Disney Adventure

[00:00:00]After a few years of working together with our partners, we've managed to bring the Mobileator to life, our first fully autonomous computer-driven character on stage.

[00:00:11]This right here with us is the Mobileator.

[00:00:14]>> That is the driving force behind the Wally Wagon.

[00:00:18]>> It is how we bring our second show, Remember, to life on the Disney Adventure.

[00:00:24]>> Technically, it's a really interesting and complex bit of machinery that we have not [music] used before.

[00:00:30]>> When we think about scenic and how we interact with performers and other pieces of scenic on our stage, we have to understand how these types of things are going to integrate. [music] And when we have something that is completely autonomous and is not connected to a track, that adds another level of risk that we have to [music] mitigate. The three different things that we're using to know where the Mobileator was at on the stage. We have >> We have lidar.

[00:00:53]>> lidar >> And so, what this is doing is it's constantly emitting a small [music] signal that is hitting reflectors that we have throughout the stage. And when it hits those, it triangulates its position.

[00:01:04]>> [music] >> So, it knows within essentially the geo-fence of the stage that we've created where it is at all times.

[00:01:10]>> With the lidars, we also have two other things that are integrating into it from a calculations perspective, right? So, we have the wheel odometry with the casters, [music] and that is basically just reading how many times is the wheel rotating and counting that [music] and showing you where it is on stage. And then, the third is the >> is we have a downward-facing camera. And what that actually does is it looks for these articles, [music] which are essentially QR codes. So, if you come over here, I'm going to show you one of them.

[00:01:37]So, this way when we go to do fine positioning, such as on the lift, we actually have these codes embedded onto the stage. So, anytime the wagon has to be in a particular spot, like on my lift in order for the lift to move, we need to make sure it is properly positioned. So, those cameras, which we thought would be a driving force in how it knows where it is, turned into be really a backup, a way to safely ensure that we are in the proper position. So, those cameras see this, know where they're at, and gives us that extra element of safety and security about how we're moving about the stage and what's happening. In order to make this fully autonomous and move around, but there's a lot of kit that goes into it in order to ensure that it can drive fully functional when it's powered on.

[00:02:20]Beneath me here is the mobile data cartridge on this side. There's one on the other side. Now, right now I'm standing on a little ramp to help our performers move about. And over here, at about the middle, I actually have a whole battery bank that sits beneath this. [music] And so, in order to power it, we need a lot of energy. And essentially, what we've got here is you all know your normal car battery. You've basically got eight of them wired up in series. So, this way we can power it, but it does mean that every time we get an opportunity, we take this down to its home where we can connect it to its charging [music] station to ensure that it's got the power to move about safely and efficiently and get done all of these cool dynamic moves that we're trying to bring in.

[00:02:58]So, after a few years of working with our partners to [music] develop this, we have our first fully autonomous computer-driven character on our stage.

[00:03:06]>> So, come to the Disney adventure and see you remember.