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UCLA Releases PhoneBot Low-Cost Bipedal Robot Paper
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The UCLA RoMeLa lab has published a PhoneBot paper on arXiv, introducing a bipedal robot that is 483 mm tall, weighs 1.8 kg, and has 13 degrees of freedom. Its bill of materials costs about $400 (excluding the phone), and with a second-hand phone the total cost is under $500. The phone is mounted on the torso and serves as the sensor, onboard computer, and interaction interface, handling motion control, image recognition, and voice interaction; however, compute-intensive speech-to-text and large-model inference still require a nearby laptop, with results sent back to the phone for playback. Walking is learned by first training in simulation on a computer and using a left-right leg mirroring method. The team says PhoneBot is a lab test device; it has no arms and does not perform complex tasks such as carrying loads or climbing stairs. The phones used in testing are all older models, such as the moto G 2025 and Samsung Galaxy A15, with second-hand prices generally not exceeding $100.
Report timeline
- UCLA RoMeLa Lab unveils PhoneBot bipedal robot, driven by an old smartphone and costing about $400 in materials
The UCLA RoMeLa lab has published a PhoneBot paper on arXiv: a bipedal robot 483 mm tall, weighing 1.8 kg, with 13 degrees of freedom and about $400 in material costs. A phone mounted on the torso serves as sensor, onboard computer, and interaction interface, handling motion control, image recognition, and voice interaction; speech-to-text and large-model inference still rely on an external laptop, and training uses simulation plus left-right leg mirroring. With a used phone, the total cost is under $500. The team describes it as a lab test device with no arms that does not perform complex tasks such as carrying loads or climbing stairs.
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