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Disney’s Free-Roaming Olaf Robot Takes the Stage at NVIDIA GTC Ahead of Paris Park Debut

Disney used GPU-driven reinforcement learning in its Kamino simulator to teach the character screen-accurate walking on unstable surfaces.

Overview

  • The self-walking Olaf joined NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang during the GTC keynote, showcasing Disney’s advances in robotics and simulation.
  • Disney confirms the character’s first guest-facing appearance on March 29 at Disneyland Paris’ World of Frozen in the Celebration in Arendelle boat show, with a Hong Kong rollout to follow.
  • Locomotion was trained in thousands of parallel physics simulations using Kamino and the Newton engine to balance, walk, and quiet footfalls while speeding development.
  • Guest interactions rely on pre-recorded lines voiced by Josh Gad and operator or time-coded control rather than autonomous decision-making.
  • Imagineering has released a whitepaper and is contributing its tools with NVIDIA and Google DeepMind, framing the platform to support more expressive robotic characters across parks.