Photo credit: Ioannis Mandralis/Communications Engineering
A drone slicing through the sky is something you don’t see everyday, much less one weaving past obstacles with finesse, only to—bam!—twist its body mid-flight, tuck in its legs, and morph into a wheeled rover, rumbling smoothly over rocky ground. That’s ATMO, a jaw-dropping robot from Caltech’s Center for Autonomous Systems and Technologies (CAST), dubbed the Aerially Transforming Morphobot, redefining robotics by blending aerial grace with rugged terrestrial grit.
Caltech’s team, spearheaded by grad student Ioannis Mandralis, took a page from nature’s playbook to birth ATMO, inspired by birds that tweak their bodies midair to slow down or slip through tight spots, effortlessly switching from soaring to perching. “We designed and built a new robotic system that is inspired by nature—by the way animals can use their bodies in different ways to achieve different types of locomotion,” Mandralis explains. This biomimicry drives ATMO’s ability to transform midair, a feat that sets it apart from other hybrid robots that typically need to land before switching modes.
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At its core, ATMO’s a quadrotor drone with four propellers, but here’s the kicker: its legs reshape on the fly. Those legs, fitted with wheels, let it touch down and roll like a mini Mars rover, tackling terrain that’d strand most drones, with an onboard computer calling the shots in seconds to pick the best mode for the ground. Hit a rough patch? ATMO just pops back into the air, flipping to flight mode without a hiccup.
In a disaster zone, this thing could zip over crumbled buildings, then roll through rubble to drop supplies or hunt for survivors, a game-changer for rescue ops. For planetary exploration, ATMO can soar over Martian craters before rolling across rocky plains, gathering data where traditional rovers or drones might fail. “Having the ability to transform in the air unlocks a lot of possibilities for improved autonomy and robustness,” Mandralis says, hinting at ATMO’s potential to redefine robotic missions.
Crafting ATMO was no walk in the park—midair shape-shifting demands featherlight yet tough engineering, plus software that thinks faster than a reflex. The crew, including design engineer Reza Nemovi and Caltech prof Richard M. Murray, poured years into perfecting it, with their Communications Engineering paper breaking down how ATMO’s tiny motor actuators pull off its morphing magic.
ATMO’s the latest in Caltech’s robotics hot streak, building on the Multi-Modal Mobility Morphobot (M4), which could fly, walk, and roll but couldn’t switch modes midair, and LEONARDO, a two-legged bot with propeller arms that skateboarded and tightrope-walked. ATMO pushes the envelope, making those seamless transitions practical enough to actually hit the real world.
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