# Agentic Robot: A Brain-Inspired Framework for Vision-Language-Action Models in Embodied Agents

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.23450 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2505.23450/

## Key facts

- Cited by 30 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Reasoning and chain-of-thought in VLA, one of 13 directions in Vision-language-action models.
- Builds on 34 of its 41 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 29 May 2025.

## Placed in

- Vision-language-action models / [Reasoning and chain-of-thought in VLA](https://mlsanity.com/vla/reasoning-and-chain-of-thought-in-vla/)
- LLM agents and tool use / [Multimodal and embodied agents](https://mlsanity.com/agents/multimodal-and-embodied-agents/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 30 of 34)

- [DeepSeek-R1: Incentivizing Reasoning Capability in LLMs via Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.12948/) (2025)
- [Qwen2.5-VL Technical Report](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.13923/) (2025)
- [GPT-4o System Card](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.21276/) (2024)
- [RT-2: Vision-Language-Action Models Transfer Web Knowledge to Robotic Control](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.15818/) (2023)
- [OpenVLA: An Open-Source Vision-Language-Action Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.09246/) (2024)
- [Diffusion Policy: Visuomotor Policy Learning via Action Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.04137/) (2023)
- [Do As I Can, Not As I Say: Grounding Language in Robotic Affordances](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2204.01691/) (2022)
- [PaLM-E: An Embodied Multimodal Language Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2303.03378/) (2023)
- [AutoGen: Enabling Next-Gen LLM Applications via Multi-Agent Conversation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.08155/) (2023)
- [MetaGPT: Meta Programming for A Multi-Agent Collaborative Framework](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.00352/) (2023)
- [Octo: An Open-Source Generalist Robot Policy](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2405.12213/) (2024)
- [LIBERO: Benchmarking Knowledge Transfer for Lifelong Robot Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2306.03310/) (2023)
- [Code as Policies: Language Model Programs for Embodied Control](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.07753/) (2022)
- [Inner Monologue: Embodied Reasoning through Planning with Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2207.05608/) (2022)
- [VoxPoser: Composable 3D Value Maps for Robotic Manipulation with Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.05973/) (2023)
- [VLM-R1: A Stable and Generalizable R1-style Large Vision-Language Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2504.07615/) (2025)
- [SpatialVLA: Exploring Spatial Representations for Visual-Language-Action Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2501.15830/) (2025)
- [Data-Efficient Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1805.08296/) (2018)
- [VIMA: General Robot Manipulation with Multimodal Prompts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.03094/) (2022)
- [Robotic Control via Embodied Chain-of-Thought Reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.08693/) (2024)
- [TraceVLA: Visual Trace Prompting Enhances Spatial-Temporal Awareness for Generalist Robotic Policies](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.10345/) (2024)
- [NaVid: Video-based VLM Plans the Next Step for Vision-and-Language Navigation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2402.15852/) (2024)
- [DeeR-VLA: Dynamic Inference of Multimodal Large Language Models for Efficient Robot Execution](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2411.02359/) (2024)
- [ChatVLA: Unified Multimodal Understanding and Robot Control with Vision-Language-Action Model](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.14420/) (2025)
- [RoboMamba: Efficient Vision-Language-Action Model for Robotic Reasoning and Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.04339/) (2024)
- [Hierarchical Planning for Long-Horizon Manipulation with Geometric and Symbolic Scene Graphs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2012.07277/) (2020)
- [A Survey on Post-training of Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.06072/) (2025)
- [VLM-Social-Nav: Socially Aware Robot Navigation through Scoring using Vision-Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2404.00210/) (2024)
- [Reflective Planning: Vision-Language Models for Multi-Stage Long-Horizon Robotic Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.16707/) (2025)
- [OmniJARVIS: Unified Vision-Language-Action Tokenization Enables Open-World Instruction Following Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2407.00114/) (2024)

## Built on by (most cited first, 30 of 30)

- [Vision-Language-Action Models for Robotics: A Review Towards Real-World Applications](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.07077/) (2025)
- [Large VLM-based Vision-Language-Action Models for Robotic Manipulation: A Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.13073/) (2025)
- [Pure Vision Language Action (VLA) Models: A Comprehensive Survey](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.19012/) (2025)
- [RoboClaw: An Agentic Framework for Scalable Long-Horizon Robotic Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.11558/) (2026)
- [Show-Harness: Just a VLM Agent Can Play Robots](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.10522/) (2026)
- [RoboMemory: A Brain-inspired Multi-memory Agentic Framework for Interactive Environmental Learning in Physical Embodied Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.01415/) (2025)
- [Towards Long-horizon Embodied Agents with Tool-Aligned Vision-Language-Action Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.13119/) (2026)
- [DeliveryBench: Can Agents Earn Profit in Real World?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.19234/) (2025)
- [VLA^2: Empowering Vision-Language-Action Models with an Agentic Framework for Unseen Concept Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.14902/) (2025)
- [An Anatomy of Vision-Language-Action Models: From Modules to Milestones and Challenges](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2512.11362/) (2025)
- [SELF-VLA: A Skill Enhanced Agentic Vision-Language-Action Framework for Contact-Rich Disassembly](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.11080/) (2026)
- [HarnessVLN: Unifying Training-Free Embodied Navigation through an Agent Harness](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.15195/) (2026)
- [P3: Toward Versatile Embodied Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2508.07033/) (2025)
- [10 Open Challenges Steering the Future of Vision-Language-Action Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.05936/) (2025)
- [Learning Robust Execution in Robotic Manipulation with Agentic Reinforcement Learning](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.13818/) (2026)
- [SpatialCLI: Learning to Reason With Spatial Tools, Then Without Them](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.27703/) (2026)
- [2AM: Grounding Agent-Side Memory as Guidance for Steerable Action Models in Long-Horizon Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.11308/) (2026)
- [CulinaryCut-VLAP: A Vision-Language-Action-Physics Framework for Food Cutting via a Force-Aware Material Point Method](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2601.06451/) (2026)
- [ThermoAct:Thermal-Aware Vision-Language-Action Models for Robotic Perception and Decision-Making](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2603.25044/) (2026)
- [Analytic Concept-Centric Memory for Agentic Embodied Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.29774/) (2026)
- [Diagnosing Semantic Handoff Failures in Agent-Orchestrated Vision-Language-Action Skill Composition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.06256/) (2026)
- [Ludiscriptscriptstyle 0.1: An Agentic System for Socially Intelligent Robots](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.22035/) (2026)
- [Behavior-Skill: A Fine-Grained Benchmark for Evaluating Vision-Language-Action Policies in Long-Horizon Tasks](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.30536/) (2026)
- [A Physical Agentic Loop for Language-Guided Grasping with Execution-State Monitoring](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.07395/) (2026)
- [Bridging Values and Behavior: A Hierarchical Framework for Proactive Embodied Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.27699/) (2026)
- [Completion at the Boundary (CaB): Deployable Switching with Completion-Aware Control under Limited Calibration](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2606.00145/) (2026)
- [ABot-AgentOS: A General Robotic Agent OS with Lifelong Multi-modal Memory](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2607.10350/) (2026)
- [Proxifield: Decentralized Multi-Agent Communication through Semantic Proximity](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.20889/) (2026)
- [SafeLoop: Risk-Aware Rollback for Vision-Language-Action Manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.26313/) (2026)
- [From Passive Execution to Active Exploration: Agentic Embodied Manipulation in Realistic Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.29091/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Long-horizon robotic manipulation poses significant challenges for autonomous systems, requiring extended reasoning, precise execution, and robust error recovery across complex sequential tasks. Current approaches, whether based on static planning or end-to-end visuomotor policies, suffer from error accumulation and lack effective verification mechanisms during execution, limiting their reliability in real-world scenarios. We present Agentic Robot, a brain-inspired framework that addresses these limitations through Standardized Action Procedure (SAP)--a novel coordination protocol governing component interactions throughout manipulation tasks. Drawing inspiration from Standardized Operating Procedures (SOPs) in human organizations, SAP establishes structured workflows for planning, execution, and verification phases. Our architecture comprises three specialized components: (1) a large reasoning model that decomposes high-level instructions into semantically coherent subgoals, (2) a vision-language-action executor that generates continuous control commands from real-time visual inputs, and (3) a temporal verifier that enables autonomous progression and error recovery through introspective assessment. This SAP-driven closed-loop design supports dynamic self-verification without external supervision. On the LIBERO benchmark, Agentic Robot achieves state-of-the-art performance with an average success rate of 79.6%, outperforming SpatialVLA by 6.1% and OpenVLA by 7.4% on long-horizon tasks. These results demonstrate that SAP-driven coordination between specialized components enhances both performance and interpretability in sequential manipulation, suggesting significant potential for reliable autonomous systems. Project Github: https://agentic-robot.github.io.