ChatGPT for Robotics: Design Principles and Model Abilities

Sai Vemprala; Rogerio Bonatti; Arthur Bucker; Ashish Kapoor

← Vol. 1, No. 3 (2026): Perception, robotics and computing systems

Research Article

ChatGPT for Robotics: Design Principles and Model Abilities

Sai VempralaORCID

Scaled Foundations, Kirkland, WA, USA

Rogerio BonattiORCID

Microsoft (United States), United States

Arthur Bucker

Carnegie Mellon University, United States

Ashish KapoorORCID

Scaled Foundations, Kirkland, WA, USA

Published: August 28, 2026Received: January 1, 2024

Abstract

This paper presents an experimental study regarding the use of OpenAI’s ChatGPT [1] for robotics applications. We outline a strategy that combines design principles for prompt engineering and the creation of a high-level function library which allows ChatGPT to adapt to different robotics tasks, simulators, and form factors. We focus our evaluations on the effectiveness of different prompt engineering techniques and dialog strategies towards the execution of various types of robotics tasks. We explore ChatGPT’s ability to use free-form dialog, parse XML tags, and to synthesize code, in addition to the use of task-specific prompting functions and closed-loop reasoning through dialogues. Our study encompasses a range of tasks within the robotics domain, from basic logical, geometrical, and mathematical reasoning all the way to complex domains such as aerial navigation, manipulation, and embodied agents. We show that ChatGPT can be effective at solving several of such tasks, while allowing users to interact with it primarily via natural language instructions. In addition to these studies, we introduce an open-sourced research tool calledPromptCraft, which contains a platform where researchers can collaboratively upload and vote on examples of good prompting schemes for robotics applications, as well as a sample robotics simulator with ChatGPT integration, making it easier for users to get started with using ChatGPT for robotics. Videos and blog: aka.ms/ChatGPT-Robotics PromptCraft, AirSim-ChatGPT code: https://github.com/microsoft/PromptCraft-Robotics.

Source and licence. Open-access article originally published as “ChatGPT for Robotics: Design Principles and Model Abilities” in IEEE Access, 2024. DOI: 10.1109/access.2024.3387941. © Sai Vemprala, Rogerio Bonatti, Arthur Bucker, Ashish Kapoor. Reproduced unchanged under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence.

Keywords

Robotics Artificial intelligence Computer science Dialog box Human–computer interaction Robot Robotic paradigms Upload

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References

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