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In this paper, a robot that can change the rigidity and shape of its body is called "metamorphic robot". So far robots have rigid bodies and have their degrees of freedom only in the joints. The metamorphic robot can change their bodies fit to the environment by deforming the limbs between the joints. To realize this robot, the softening deformable structure is developed. The structure is made of a low melting point alloy and becomes soft and deformable through the phase change induced by heating and becomes rigid by cooling. In the soft-deformable state, the robot can change the shape by pressing against objects. On the other hand, in the rigid state it is rigid enough to support the robot's body weight keeping the deformation.
Nakai et al. (Wed,) studied this question.