WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — Friendly robots, the ones people love to love, are quirky: R2-D2, C-3PO, WALL-E, BB-8, Marvin, Roz and Baymax. They’re emotional, prone to panic or bossy, empathetic and able to ...

Engineers at Northwestern University have created a new kind of robot that can adapt, recover from damage, and keep moving even after being broken apart. The machines, called “legged metamachines,” ...