Disney details plans to make dark ride vehicles disappear
Disney has plans for a more reliable roller coaster wheel and for making dark ride vehicles disappear.
In this week's patent applications, Disney has filed for a "Compliant Mechanism Suspension System," that can take the force of a thrill ride track wheel better than traditional designs.
A roller coaster wheel is not just a single wheel. Since coasters can run in positions that rotate 360 degrees around a track, a coaster train needs multiple wheels that are positioned in ways to provide a stable connection with the track at all times. Coaster manufacturers each have their own approaches to wheel design, and this patent application describes an approach that Disney proposes.
Illustration from Disney's patent application
"The disclosed systems provide a compliant mechanism plate design that eliminates traditional components that wear when used for guidance and force balance, such as to suspend a track vehicle about a track or rail," the application states. "Using geometry and material properties, a flexible (e.g., monolithic) plate can absorb impact loading and provide wheel guidance in a compact component. The systems provided herein are compact, such as providing a single component that performs multiple functions found in traditional suspension applications. For instance, traditional applications may require separate components for wheel movement and for suspension and load balance. Traditional designs also have components requiring replacement and lubrication. The disclosed systems remove some of these wear components, replacing them, in some examples, with a singular, more compact plate. The compliant mechanism suspension systems disclosed herein significantly reduce the need for maintenance and reduce maintenance costs. The provided systems also reduce the number of components required, such as allowing for wheel suspension to be incorporated into a support bracket."
Disney this week also filed for a "Content Projection System for Projecting Content Onto Ride Vehicles." Disney has been doing this for some time, with the bubble projections its The Little Mermaid ride vehicles as we go "underwater." This application extends that concept, describing a projection system that could be used to conceal the appearance of other vehicles on a ride rather than just decorate them with projections.
Disney also filed an application for "Attention-Based Map Encoding For Generalized Robot Locomotion." This one seems like a deep-weeds explanation for how Disney makes its next-generation BDX and Olaf robots work.
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