Modular robots are beeing developed mainly to carry out multiple complex tasks in outer space, such as assembly, inspection, maintenance, habitat construction, surface landing, and exploration in space and on planet surfaces.

NASA researchers on developing swarms of micro "nanobots" that have "abundant flexibility" to change shape into land rovers, antennas, or other devices as needed when exploring distant worlds.

Robots that change shape and even split into smaller parts to explore unfamiliar terrain could soon be feasible thanks to new algorithms designed to enable such metamorphic tricks.

Robots out on the factory floor pretty much know what's coming. Constrained as they are by programming and geometry, their world is just an assembly line. But for robots operating outdoors, away from civilization, both mission and geography are unpredictable. Here, robots with the ability to change their shape could be of great value, since they could adapt to constantly varying tasks and environments. Modular reconfigurable robots—experimental systems made by interconnecting multiple, simple, similar units--can perform such shape shifting.

PARC researchers are working on a \'Polybot\' a robot made from a dozen or so identical modules. When ordered to do so by its operator, it changes shape on the move by rebuilding itself out of these modules.