Flexible 'Dragon' Drone Autonomously Shapeshifts to Fly Through Tight Spaces

A group of roboticists at the University of Tokyo have created a flexible, flying "drone-robot" that could see a multitude of uses. The Dual-rotor embedded multilink Robot with the Ability of multi-deGree-of-freedom aerial transformatiON, is (thankfully) better known by its acronym, DRAGON. As illustrated in the video below, it can change its shape mid-flight and fly through tight spaces. The current version of DRAGON consists of four modules, each equipped with a set of maneuverable thrusters. Battery-powered hinged joints link the modules.