Tiny robot, big brain: real-time autonomy on a budget

Kari Jaaskelainen

08 Jan 2026 — 1 min read

Tiny robot, big brain

What if low-cost robots could make their own decisions—no constant cloud connection needed?

In this study, researchers embedded an autonomous software agent (written in AgentSpeak) into a small two-wheeled robot. Using only its onboard sensors and reasoning, the bot explored and solved a maze—on resource-constrained hardware.

Maze solved in 59 seconds
287 reasoning cycles
Each decision phase took < 1 millisecond

Why it matters: these results show that high-level, agent-based control can run fast enough for real-time use even on tiny devices. That means quicker responses, less dependence on external control, and more reliable operation when networks are slow or unavailable.

Paper by Negar Halakou, Juan F. Gutierrez, Ye Sun, Han Jiang, Xueming Wu, Yilun Song, and Andres Gomez. Read more: https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.04191v1

Paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.04191v1

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#Robotics #AI #EmbeddedSystems #AutonomousAgents #EdgeAI #Research

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