A team of researchers at Virginia Tech has developed pliable materials that can morph from ground traveling drones into aerial craft – and back – in a matter of seconds.
Led by Assistant Professor Michael Bartlett, the Virginia Tech squad took inspiration for their self-morphing, dual-functionality drones from living organisms capable of changing shape to enable different kinds of activity. Octopi do that as they move, eat, and interact with changing surroundings. Even human muscles alter form when flexed to lift loads and generate movement. Seeing that, Bartlett and his partners decided to devise materials that could permit a machine to similarly change form and attendant capabilities.
“When we started the project, we wanted a material that could do three things: change shape, hold that shape, and then return to the original configuration, and to do this over many cycles,” said Bartlett. “One of the challenges was to create a material that was soft…
