The Register recently reported in their article 'DARPA seeks Transformer helicopters' that the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has launched a project to research and presumably develop a rotor that is reconfigurable in flight, in order to achieve performance and efficiency benefits. This programme has been designated the Mission Adaptive Rotor (MAR) project.
Perhaps the most obvious way of achieving this could be that the rotor is extended outwards in a way similar to a telescope, with an outer rotor containing an inner rotor. This could presumably be controlled by pneumatic pressure.
I also considered that perhaps they could research the use of a Wingtip device at the end of ther rotor. The A380 makes use of wingtip devices to enables it to have shorter wings, (in order that it can manouvre in airports), that have the same characteristics as a longer wing. Without the long wing characteristics it would not be able to fly.
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