Fundamentals of Physical AI
It provides a foundational framework for designing and evaluating physically intelligent systems, such as robots in rehabilitation, addressing the need for embodied AI beyond classical data-driven models.
This paper tackles the problem of establishing a theoretical foundation for physically intelligent systems by proposing six fundamental principles—embodiment, sensory perception, motor action, learning, autonomy, and context sensitivity—that form a closed control loop, shifting intelligence from abstract computation to emergent physical interaction.
This work will elaborate the fundamental principles of physical artificial intelligence (Physical AI) from a scientific and systemic perspective. The aim is to create a theoretical foundation that describes the physical embodiment, sensory perception, ability to act, learning processes, and context sensitivity of intelligent systems within a coherent framework. While classical AI approaches rely on symbolic processing and data driven models, Physical AI understands intelligence as an emergent phenomenon of real interaction between body, environment, and experience. The six fundamentals presented here are embodiment, sensory perception, motor action, learning, autonomy, and context sensitivity, and form the conceptual basis for designing and evaluating physically intelligent systems. Theoretically, it is shown that these six principles do not represent loose functional modules but rather act as a closed control loop in which energy, information, control, and context are in constant interaction. This circular interaction enables a system to generate meaning not from databases, but from physical experience, a paradigm shift that understands intelligence as an physical embodied process. Physical AI understands learning not as parameter adjustment, but as a change in the structural coupling between agents and the environment. To illustrate this, the theoretical model is explained using a practical scenario: An adaptive assistant robot supports patients in a rehabilitation clinic. This example illustrates that physical intelligence does not arise from abstract calculation, but from immediate, embodied experience. It shows how the six fundamentals interact in a real system: embodiment as a prerequisite, perception as input, movement as expression, learning as adaptation, autonomy as regulation, and context as orientation.