RoboNeuron: A Middle-Layer Infrastructure for Agent-Driven Orchestration in Embodied AI

arXiv cs.RO / 4/2/2026

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Key Points

  • RoboNeuron is proposed as a middleware “middle layer” to connect LLM agents using Model Context Protocol (MCP) with robot middleware such as ROS2, addressing mismatches between agent tool APIs and robot interfaces.
  • It automatically derives agent-callable tools from ROS schemas, enabling a unified execution abstraction that supports both direct robot commands and modular composition.
  • The approach is designed to keep a stable inference boundary, so changes to the VLA backend, serving stack, or runtime/acceleration presets can be localized without requiring system-wide re-integration or rewiring.
  • The paper reports evaluations in both simulation and on real hardware across multiple robot control tasks (base control, arm motion, and VLA-based grasping), demonstrating improved modular orchestration.
  • The full implementation is released on GitHub, aiming to improve reusability of agent-to-robot integration components for embodied AI deployments.

Abstract

Vision-language-action (VLA) models and LLM agents have advanced rapidly, yet reliable deployment on physical robots is often hindered by an interface mismatch between agent tool APIs and robot middleware. Current implementations typically rely on ad-hoc wrappers that are difficult to reuse, and changes to the VLA backend or serving stack often necessitate extensive re-integration. We introduce RoboNeuron, a middleware layer that connects the Model Context Protocol (MCP) for LLM agents with robot middleware such as ROS2. RoboNeuron bridges these ecosystems by deriving agent-callable tools directly from ROS schemas, providing a unified execution abstraction that supports both direct commands and modular composition, and localizing backend, runtime, and acceleration-preset changes within a stable inference boundary. We evaluate RoboNeuron in simulation and on hardware through multi-platform base control, arm motion, and VLA-based grasping tasks, demonstrating that it enables modular system orchestration under a unified interface while supporting backend transitions without system rewiring. The full code implementation of this work is available at github repo: https://github.com/guanweifan/RoboNeuron

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