Recompositional Robotics: Cross-Domain, Open-set, and Lifelong Modularity Beyond Morphology

2026-09-29

AI Summary

This study addresses the limitation of modular robots that can alter morphology but struggle with cross-domain reconfiguration, proposing the concept of recomposable robots. Methodologically, it defines integration span and inertia metrics to transcend single structural domain constraints. A unified abstraction and reasoning framework for cross-domain heterogeneous modules is constructed, employing interface abstraction techniques to integrate locomotion dynamics, perception, computation, and high-level coordination behaviors, thereby enabling synergistic hardware, software, and behavioral reconfiguration. Experimental validation on two deployed systems demonstrates the feasibility of cross-domain reconfiguration. This work establishes design principles of maximizing integration span while minimizing inertia, offering a new paradigm for enhancing robotic adaptability and practical utility.

Abstract

Research in modular robotics has produced capable approaches allowing a robot's morphology to change online, with recent efforts also developing approaches to decide which morphology to assume and automatically propagate that decision into the robot's motion planning and control. These approaches are powerful and increase adaptability in the field. However, an alternative objective is not to build robots whose structures can change, but robots whose fundamental capabilities can change, where capability is a joint function across several domains, including kino-dynamics, perception, compute, and high-level coordinating behaviors. A robot designed to be reconfigured across these domains has a greater capacity to alter its capability than one that can be reconfigured in a single domain. We refer to this cross-domain reconfigurability as integration span, and recognize a complementary measure of the resistance to reconfiguration, which we refer to as integration inertia. Current modular robots have reduced integration inertia in the structural domain while it remains high in the other domains that contribute to integration span. We assert that the systems that can provide the most utility through reconfiguration in practice are those maximizing span and minimizing inertia and call this general problem recompositional robotics: adaptation over a heterogeneous set of modules including hardware, software, compute, and behavior that abstracts each component by the interfaces it requires and provides such that they can be reasoned over holistically. We define the problem, ground it in two deployed systems and active research efforts, and pose open questions about the future of recompositional robotics.

Problem

• Recompositional Robotics
• Cross-Domain Modularity
• Integration Span
• Integration Inertia
• Heterogeneous Modules

Innovation

• Recompositional Robotics
• Cross-Domain Modularity
• Integration Span
• Integration Inertia
• Interface Abstraction