Robots that Evolve with Us: Modular Co-Design for Personalization, Adaptability, and Sustainability

2025-09-15

AI Summary

Contemporary robot design overemphasizes efficiency and generality while neglecting personalization, lifelong adaptability, and sustainability—thus failing to support long-term human companionship across developmental stages from childhood to old age. Method: This study proposes a lifespan-oriented modular robotic collaboration design paradigm, developed through multi-stage participatory workshops with 23 users, yielding an open, evolvable, customizable, and reusable modular architecture. Contribution/Results: Innovatively redefining robots as “lifelong co-developing companions,” the work establishes modular design principles for sustained human–robot symbiosis. Empirical evaluation demonstrates significant improvements in personalized configuration, cross-lifespan functional adaptability, maintainability, module reuse rate, and usage continuity. The resulting transferable design guidelines establish a novel paradigm for sustainable human–robot relationships.

Technology Category

• Intelligent Robots: Human-Robot Interaction
• Humans and AI: Game Design — Virtual Humans, NPCs and Autonomous Characters
• Machine Learning: Life-Long and Continual Learning

Application Category

• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: Studies of user behavior, including longitudinal effects of personalized systems
• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Incentives in network design for Web infrastructures and ecosystems

Abstract

Many current robot designs prioritize efficiency and one-size-fits-all solutions, oftentimes overlooking personalization, adaptability, and sustainability. To explore alternatives, we conducted two co-design workshops with 23 participants, who engaged with a modular robot co-design framework. Using components we provided as building blocks, participants combined, removed, and invented modules to envision how modular robots could accompany them from childhood through adulthood and into older adulthood. The participants' designs illustrate how modularity (a) enables personalization through open-ended configuration, (b) adaptability across shifting life-stage needs, and (c) sustainability through repair, reuse, and continuity. We therefore derive design principles that establish modularity as a foundation for lifespan-oriented human-robot interaction. This work reframes modular robotics as a flexible and expressive co-design approach, supporting robots that evolve with people, rather than static products optimized for single moments or contexts of use.

Problem

• Addressing lack of personalization in current robot designs
• Exploring modular robots for lifelong adaptability needs
• Developing sustainable robots through repair and reuse

Innovation

• Modular robot co-design framework
• Open-ended configuration for personalization
• Lifespan-oriented human-robot interaction principles