# ARRC: Advanced Reasoning Robot Control - Knowledge-Driven Autonomous Manipulation Using Retrieval-Augmented Generation

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.05547 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.05547/

## Key facts

- Cited by 2 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Placed in Spatial and embodied reasoning, one of 17 directions in LLM reasoning.
- Builds on 5 of its 21 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 7 Oct 2025.

## Placed in

- LLM reasoning / [Spatial and embodied reasoning](https://mlsanity.com/lr/spatial-and-embodied-reasoning/)
- Retrieval-augmented generation / [Agentic RAG, agents and memory](https://mlsanity.com/rag/agentic-rag-agents-and-memory/)

## Builds on (most cited first, 5 of 5)

- [RT-2: Vision-Language-Action Models Transfer Web Knowledge to Robotic Control](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.15818/) (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)
- [VIMA: General Robot Manipulation with Multimodal Prompts](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.03094/) (2022)
- [Thinking about GPT-3 In-Context Learning for Biomedical IE? Think Again](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.08410/) (2022)

## Built on by (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [A Physical Agentic Loop for Language-Guided Grasping with Execution-State Monitoring](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2604.07395/) (2026)
- [Large Language Models in the Loop: A Stability- and Network-Aware Survey in Networked Control, Cyber-Physical, and Multi-Agent Systems](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.16599/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

We present ARRC (Advanced Reasoning Robot Control), a practical system that connects natural-language instructions to safe local robotic control by combining Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) with RGB-D perception and guarded execution on an affordable robot arm. The system indexes curated robot knowledge (movement patterns, task templates, and safety heuristics) in a vector database, retrieves task-relevant context for each instruction, and conditions a large language model (LLM) to produce JSON-structured action plans. Plans are executed on a UFactory xArm 850 fitted with a Dynamixel-driven parallel gripper and an Intel RealSense D435 camera. Perception uses AprilTag detections fused with depth to produce object-centric metric poses. Execution is enforced via software safety gates: workspace bounds, speed and force caps, timeouts, and bounded retries. We describe the architecture, knowledge design, integration choices, and a reproducible evaluation protocol for tabletop scan, approach, and pick-place tasks. Experimental results demonstrate the efficacy of the proposed approach. Our design shows that RAG-based planning can substantially improve plan validity and adaptability while keeping perception and low-level control local to the robot.
