New 'Transformer' humanoid robot can launch a shapeshifting drone off its back

Four wheels folded into propellers as a shape-shifting drone launched from the back of a humanoid robot, transforming mid-flight in a Caltech laboratory. The scene resembles science fiction, but it's the latest breakthrough in multimodal robotics.

Engineers have created what they call the M4 drone, which can reconfigure its body to roll on four wheels, fly with rotors, stand upright like a meerkat, or even tumble toward its destination. The drone rides piggyback on a Unitree G1 humanoid robot, which walks to deploy its mechanical passenger at strategic locations.

"Right now, robots can fly, robots can drive, and robots can walk. Those are all great in certain scenarios," says Aaron Ames, director of CAST and a Caltech professor. "But how do we take those different locomotion modalities and put them together into a single package?"

The collaboration aims to make autonomous systems safer and more reliable as robots become increasingly integrated into daily life, combining the advantages of different movement types while minimizing their individual limitations.