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OpenBot Project

OpenBot

Abstract: Current robots are either expensive or make significant compromises on

sensory richness, computational power, and communication capabilities. We propose

to leverage smartphones to equip robots with extensive sensor suites, powerful

computational abilities, state-of-the-art communication channels, and access

to a thriving software ecosystem. We design a small electric vehicle that costs

$50 and serves as a robot body for standard Android smartphones. We develop a

software stack that allows smartphones to use this body for mobile operation and

demonstrate that the system is sufficiently powerful to support advanced robotics

workloads such as person following and real-time autonomous navigation in unstructured

environments. Controlled experiments demonstrate that the presented

approach is robust across different smartphones and robot bodies.

OpenBot: Turning Smartphones into Robots

OpenBot leverages smartphones as brains for low-cost robots. We have designed a small electric vehicle that costs about $50 and serves as a robot body. Our software stack for Android smartphones supports advanced robotics workloads such as person following and real-time autonomous navigation.

Getting started with OpenBot

Build your own Robot Body
Flash the Arduino Firmware
Compile and run the Android App
Train your own Driving Policy

Citation

Please cite our paper if you use OpenBot.

@article{openbot2020,
    author    = {Matthias M\"uller and Vladlen Koltun},
    title     = {{OpenBot}: Turning Smartphones into Robots},
    journal   = {arXiv:2008.10631},
    year      = {2020},
}