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It's a superpower that could let it explore disaster sites with ease.
Drones come in all shapes and sizes. Now researchers at the University of Zurich and École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) have made a quadcopter that can change its shape and size in flight.
The drone was built with first responders and rescue efforts in mind. Disaster sites rarely conform to logical shapes and sizes. Having a drone that could change its shape and size to fit through tight spaces on the fly could prove extremely valuable. As is often the case in experimental robotic projects, researchers turned to animals for inspiration—specifically how some birds can fold their wings to fly through narrow passages.
"Our solution is quite simple from a mechanical point of view, but it is very versatile and very autonomous, with onboard perception and control systems," says Davide Falanga, researcher at the University of Zurich and the paper's first author in a press statement. The team's quadcopter has four propellors, each of which can rotate independently.
The drone has a standard X shape configuration, with four arms stretched out. But, when faced with a narrow passage, it can now change into an H shape. Or it can shrink itself into an O shape, arms folded into its body. And if that wasn't enough, it can also transform into a T shape, allowing an onboard camera mounted on the central frame to get as close as possible to its focal object.
"The morphing drone can adopt different configurations according to what is needed in the field," says Stefano Mintchev, coauthor and researcher at EPFL.
While the working concept model is impressive, the researchers aren't done with the folding drone yet. They want to improve the structure of the drone so that it can fully fold in three dimensions, offering even more shapes. And they want to create full autonomy—a drone that looks at the shifting terrain in, say, an apartment building partially destroyed by an earthquake and change shape to meet its current needs.
"The final goal is to give the drone a high-level instruction such as 'enter that building, inspect every room and come back' and let it figure out by itself how to do it," says Falanga.

Source: University of Zurich