The robot, which mostly consists of a static torso supporting a highly animated and articulated head, was developed by engineers at Disney’s Research division, Walt Disney Imagineering, and robotics researchers from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and the California Institute of Technology.
Below is a video of the robot-human interaction and it's enough to send a few shivers up your spine. Here's their statement describing the video.
This video describes the development of a system for lifelike gaze in human-robot interactions using a humanoid animatronic bust. We present a general architecture that seeks not only to create gaze interactions from a technological standpoint but also through the lens of character animation where the fidelity and believability of motion is paramount; that is, we seek to create an interaction that demonstrates the illusion of life.
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