Malleable Robot

Malleable robots are reconfigurable robotic arms designed for adaptability and flexibility in diverse tasks, achieving this through morphology changes rather than simply increasing joint degrees of freedom. Current research focuses on developing novel designs for continuously bending segments with variable stiffness, often inspired by biological structures, and employing advanced control algorithms, including deep reinforcement learning and reduced-order modeling, to manage their complex dynamics. This work is significant for its potential to create lighter, cheaper, and more versatile robots for applications ranging from medical interventions to search and rescue operations in challenging environments.