This New Robot Transforms Itself at Will to Adapt to and Overcome Obstacles

Modular self-reconfigurable robots (MSRR) are a quite new class of robotics that sees shape-shifting come to life. These new machines have an eerily human way of adapting to tackle unknown situations. 

Now a new paper in Science Robotics is introducing one such impressive robot with a new twist. “The system architecture balances distributed mechanical elements with centralized perception, planning, and control. By providing an example of how a modular robot system can be designed to leverage reactive reconfigurability in unknown environments, we have begun to lay the groundwork for modular self-reconfigurable robots to address tasks in the real world,” stated the study.

But if you need to see things to believe them, and we don’t blame you, watch this incredible video of the novel robot certain to astound! The paper’s authors, and for all intents and purposes the robot’s fathers, claim their new invention represents the first time a modular robot has autonomously resolved problems by reconfiguring to adapt to and overcome obstacles in its environment. 

The work opens doors to many amazing advanced future applications. Efficient MSRRs can be used to offer unprecedented support and new solutions to everything from space exploration to consumer products to healthcare.

These robots offer superior utilization factor and self-healing capabilities than their traditional counterparts, by far the most in-demand traits in robotics. It seems the future of robotics is here and it is modular, and dare we say intelligent? You decide!