Conduct research into the feasibility, design, operation, or performance of robotic mechanisms, components, or systems, such as planetary rovers, multiple mobile robots, reconfigurable robots, or man-machine interactions.

“Conduct research into the feasibility, design, operation, or performance of robotic mechanisms, components, or systems, such as planetary rovers, multiple mobile robots, reconfigurable robots, or man-machine interactions.” is a core task performed by Robotics Engineers. Among the occupation's 24 rated tasks, workers place it 9th by importance (#16 most important). About 77% of workers say it is relevant to their job.

This is a single occupation-specific task statement from O*NET. The figures below describe how central the task is to the job and what independent studies measure about AI and this kind of work — not a prediction that the task will be automated.

Work activities this task rolls up to

O*NET groups concrete tasks into broader work activities shared across many occupations.

• Research technology designs or applications. in Getting Information

AI exposure

The OpenAI / Eloundou “GPTs are GPTs” study rates this task E1. Direct exposure — a language model could plausibly cut the time to do this task by at least half.

Exposure measures whether a model could meaningfully speed the task up — it is an estimate of overlap with model capabilities, not a measure of whether the work will be done by software. The study's intermediate score (β) for this task is 1.00. Automation potential label: T1.

How AI is actually used on this kind of task

The Anthropic Economic Index observes how people actually use AI on tasks like this one across millions of real conversations.

• 100% of interactions still needed a human in the loop

Observed AI use describes people choosing to use AI as a tool on this kind of task today. It is augmentation and assistance, not a measure of jobs replaced.

Other tasks in this occupation

• Review or approve designs, calculations, or cost estimates. · importance 4.1
• Process or interpret signals or sensor data. · importance 4.0
• Debug robotics programs. · importance 3.9
• Build, configure, or test robots or robotic applications. · importance 3.9
• Create back-ups of robot programs or parameters. · importance 3.9
• Provide technical support for robotic systems. · importance 3.8
• Design end-of-arm tooling. · importance 3.8
• Design robotic systems, such as automatic vehicle control, autonomous vehicles, advanced displays, advanced sensing, robotic platforms, computer vision, or telematics systems. · importance 3.8
• Supervise technologists, technicians, or other engineers. · importance 3.8
• Design software to control robotic systems for applications, such as military defense or manufacturing. · importance 3.8
• Conduct research on robotic technology to create new robotic systems or system capabilities. · importance 3.7
• Investigate mechanical failures or unexpected maintenance problems. · importance 3.7
• Integrate robotics with peripherals, such as welders, controllers, or other equipment. · importance 3.7
• Install, calibrate, operate, or maintain robots. · importance 3.7

See all tasks on the Robotics Engineers page.

Sources for this page

Every figure above traces to a named public dataset and the exact release below — not hand-written opinion. See the full methodology for what each measure does and does not mean.

• O*NET 30.3 U.S. Department of Labor / National Center for O*NET Development
• Anthropic Economic Index v4 (2026-01-15) + v2 (2025-03-27) Anthropic
• “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130 OpenAI / academic

Data compiled June 2, 2026. Figures are estimates, not advice.

@misc{singulariki-task-16525,
  title  = {Conduct research into the feasibility, design, operation, or performance of robotic mechanisms, components, or systems, such as planetary rovers, multiple mobile robots, reconfigurable robots, or man-machine interactions.},
  author = {{Singulariki}},
  year   = {2026},
  note   = {O*NET 30.3; Anthropic Economic Index v4 (2026-01-15) + v2 (2025-03-27); “GPTs are GPTs” (Eloundou et al.) arXiv 2303.10130. Accessed June 7, 2026},
  url    = {https://singulariki.com/tasks/task-16525}
}