Seven papers, one coherent architecture — from the ECM runtime core to fleet-scale governance evaluation.
P1 Runtime
P5 Contracts
P2|P4 Evolution
P3 Governance
P6 Federation
P7 Benchmark
Research Narrative
Seven papers form a complete research program: from defining what an embodied agent runtime is, to how it evolves, how it is governed, how capabilities are contracted, how robots federate, and finally how the field should measure all of this.
1
Architecture
AEROS — What is an embodied agent runtime?
Defines the single-agent runtime and Embodied Capability Module (ECM) abstraction. Capabilities are installable, removable, and governable at runtime.
2
Evolution
How do capabilities grow without breaking the agent?
Capability evolution through ECM versioning, replacement, and regression-aware upgrading — without altering the agent's identity or existing behaviors.
3
Governance
How does the runtime stay controllable during execution?
Runtime governance layer: admission control, policy enforcement, behavioral watchers, structured recovery, and human override protocols.
4
Governed Evolution
When capabilities evolve, how does governance stay valid?
Bridges evolution and governance: gated deployment, shadow mode testing, rollback conditions, and policy compatibility checking across capability versions.
5
Contracts
How do capability packages compose reliably?
Six-dimensional contract model for ECMs: functional signature, behavioral assumptions, resource requirements, permission boundaries, recovery semantics, and version compatibility.
6
Federation
How do multiple robots coordinate without fragmenting each agent?
Fleet coordination through federation across coherent single-agent runtimes: shared capability registries, trust-scoped delegation, layered recovery, and hierarchical human oversight.
7
Benchmark
How should the field measure all of this?
EmbodiedGovBench: seven governance dimensions, six protocol families, single-robot and fleet evaluation tracks. The measurement layer that completes the research program.
Paper Series
All papers share unified terminology, author information, and cross-references.
P1
AEROS: A Runtime Architecture for Embodied Agents with Installable Capability Modules
Preprint · 2026
Defines the single-agent runtime and Embodied Capability Module (ECM) abstraction: what an embodied agent runtime is.
ECM Contracts: Contract-Aware, Versioned, and Governable Capability Interfaces for Embodied Agents
Preprint · 2026
Six-dimensional contract model for ECMs: functional signature, behavioral assumptions, resource requirements, permission boundaries, recovery semantics, and version compatibility.
@article{qin2026aeros,
title={AEROS: A Runtime Architecture for Embodied Agents with Installable Capability Modules},
author={Qin, Xue and Luan, Simin and See, John and Yang, Cong and Li, Zhijun},
journal={arXiv preprint arXiv:2604.07039},
year={2026}
}
@article{qin2026evolution,
title={Learning Without Losing Identity: Capability Evolution for Embodied Agents},
author={Qin, Xue and Luan, Simin and See, John and Yang, Cong and Li, Zhijun},
journal={arXiv preprint arXiv:2604.07799},
year={2026}
}
@article{qin2026governance,
title={Harnessing Embodied Agents: Runtime Governance for Policy-Constrained Execution},
author={Qin, Xue and Luan, Simin and See, John and Yang, Cong and Li, Zhijun},
journal={arXiv preprint arXiv:2604.07833},
year={2026}
}
@article{qin2026governed,
title={Governed Capability Evolution for Embodied Agents},
author={Qin, Xue and Luan, Simin and See, John and Yang, Cong and Li, Zhijun},
journal={arXiv preprint arXiv:2604.08059},
year={2026}
}
@article{qin2026contracts,
title={ECM Contracts: Contract-Aware, Versioned, and Governable Capability Interfaces for Embodied Agents},
author={Qin, Xue and Luan, Simin and See, John and Yang, Cong and Li, Zhijun},
journal={arXiv preprint arXiv:2604.13097},
year={2026}
}
@article{qin2026fsar,
title={Federated Single-Agent Robotics: Multi-Robot Coordination Without Intra-Robot Multi-Agent Fragmentation},
author={Qin, Xue and Luan, Simin and See, John and Yang, Cong and Li, Zhijun},
journal={arXiv preprint arXiv:2604.11028},
year={2026}
}
@article{qin2026embodiedgovbench,
title={EmbodiedGovBench: A Benchmark for Governance, Recovery, and Upgrade Safety in Embodied Agent Systems},
author={Qin, Xue and Luan, Simin and See, John and Yang, Cong and Li, Zhijun},
journal={arXiv preprint arXiv:2604.11174},
year={2026}
}