https://www.cnet.com/news/transformers-like-robot-shifts-shape-at-will-to-tackle-challenges/

"I don't actually prescribe, 'Move to the left, change your shape,'" said Hadas Kress-Gazit, associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at Cornell University and principal investigator on new research featuring the bot. "All these decisions are made autonomously by the robot."

This modular self-reconfigurable robot (MSSR) brings the vision of adaptive, multipurpose modular robots a step closer to reality, its creators say. Autonomous MSSRs could prove especially useful when maneuvering unfamiliar, changing terrain to do things like clean up from an earthquake or other natural disaster in which robots might need to enter cracks and crevices.