Computer Science Researcher Creates Flexible Robots
Modular robots built by ڰ researchers are finding their feet outdoors.
Engineered to assemble into structures that best suit the task at hand, the robots are pieced together from cube-shaped robotic blocks that combine rigid rods and soft, stretchy strings whose tension can be adjusted to deform the blocks and control their shape.
“Modular robots are versatile. By combining the blocks differently, we can use them in many different ways,” says Luyang Zhao, Guarini ’25, who built the bots, working with collaborators at the , Rutgers University, and Yale University.
Zhao and a fellow computer science graduate student at Guarini, Yitao Jiang, put their robotic modules to the test near campus—the robots navigated a variety of outdoor spaces, even crawling under fallen logs and narrowing to squeeze through tight spaces. They also joined up to create scaffolds for makeshift tents, and with the assistance of a drone, they found and “rescued” a fellow block that had broken down.
Drawing inspiration from ants that link up to bridge gaps along their path, the researchers demonstrate how a row of connected modules can create a bridge across a narrow brook and even transport light objects across gaps.
By laying a board across a short chain of blocks, Zhao and Jiang created a stretcher that carried a human dummy. While the bots cannot support human weights yet, the researchers believe that may be possible in the future.
Their abilities could make them very handy as aids for disaster relief during emergencies, says Zhao. “The robots are lightweight and deployable but also quite robust. They can be air-dropped anywhere and quickly assembled into a bridge or support a temporary shelter.”
The researchers describe the design and capabilities of the modular robotic blocks in a .
Each module has eight rigid rods that extend outward from a 3D-printed center that houses a battery to power the robot and a wi-fi module that makes it possible to communicate with the robot while it moves around untethered. Blocks can “walk” for more than three hours on a charged battery, says Zhao.
At the ends of the rods are end-caps that are connected via strings. The end-caps have motors that vary the lengths of the strings to change the block’s shape and activate latches on the caps—also 3D-printed—that allow one block to connect with another.
“One of the coolest things about the robot is that you can get quite a bit of motion out of the aggregate system from small deformations of the individual robots,” says, professor of computer science and the study’s principal investigator. “The units built out of the pieces combine the structure and the motion together in a very nice way.”
The team’s use of drones to create 3D structures is a gamechanger, says Balkcom. While it is easy to hook the modules together on the ground, having them overcome gravity by clambering over each other to make taller structures is difficult. “Drone deployment makes it somewhat like 3D printing. You can configure and reconfigure the modules to make these big, tall structures,” he says.
This is the first time that modular robots have demonstrated such a wide variety of functions in an outdoor setting, says Zhao, who recently joined the faculty at Clemson University as an assistant professor. But there’s a lot more work to be done, she says, from increasing the ability of the robots to bear more weight to making them more autonomous by adding sensors to help the robots perceive and respond to their environment.