Caltech has a new RC car-sized robot that can change its shape to drive, fly, and walk to meet the needs of the moment. In its press release, the university compares the M4 — short for Multi-Modal Mobility Morphobot, which sounds like a rejected pitch for a ’90s kids’ show — to a Transformer, and it’s not too far from the truth.
The robot is packed with electronics, motors, and a small computer that lets it decide what form it should take to get around. The team that made it gave the M4 large wheels that can, in seconds, swing up to become something more akin to a drone’s rotors and fly. It can also use its rotors to help it up a steep slope while the back wheels drive it forward from the ground, as described in a paper in Nature…
