This page is provided for historical and archival purposes only.
While the seminar dates are correct, we offer no guarantee of
informational accuracy or link validity. Contact information for
the speakers, hosts and seminar committee are certainly out of
date. Traditional techniques for computer animation of people,
animals, and robots often produce motions that appear unnatural.
We are exploring one possible solution to this problem: applying
robot control algorithms to physically realistic models of the
systems that we would like to animate. We simulate rigid body
models of humans performing dynamic behaviors using control
algorithms that cause the model to perform the desired maneuver.
For example, the control algorithms allow the simulated humans
to maintain balance while moving their upper body, to run or
bicycle at a variety of speeds, and to perform a handspring
vault and several platform dives. Algorithms for group behaviors
allow a number of simulated bicyclists and simulated robots to
move as a grou