Problem
Research questions and friction points this paper is trying to address.
Humanoid Robot
Low-Cost Platform
Open-Source
Education and Research
Smartphone Repurposing
PhoneBot: A Low-Cost Open Humanoid Robot Platform Reusing Smartphones
🤖 AI Summary
This study addresses the limited accessibility of humanoid robots caused by expensive hardware, complex sensing requirements, and high computational demands. To overcome these barriers, this work proposes a low-cost, open-source platform that utilizes a smartphone as the core perception and computation unit. By leveraging the inertial measurement unit, visual sensors, and communication modules of consumer-grade smartphones, the system achieves multimodal interaction and real-time control. Integrated with a modular lower-body structure and thirteen cost-effective actuators, this approach significantly simplifies the system architecture and lowers the development threshold. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed platform enables stable locomotion, visual following, and telepresence capabilities. Consequently, it offers an efficient rapid prototyping solution for both educational and research applications in humanoid robotics.
📝 Abstract
The adoption of humanoid robots in education and research remains limited by high hardware costs, complex sensing systems, and substantial computational requirements. This paper presents PhoneBot, a low-cost, open-source humanoid robot platform that repurposes commodity smartphones as its primary sensing and computing unit. By using a smartphone's integrated inertial measurement unit (IMU), camera, wireless connectivity, and onboard processing capabilities, PhoneBot reduces hardware costs and simplifies the system architecture. The robot combines a modular lower-body structure driven by 13 low-cost actuators with a torso-mounted smartphone that supports perception, control computation, and user interaction. We describe the mechanical design, software architecture, and real-time communication framework that support stable locomotion and capabilities including vision-based human following, conversational interaction, filming, and mobile telepresence. Experimental evaluations demonstrate reliable walking, perception-driven interaction, and straightforward deployment using off-the-shelf consumer smartphones. With fully open-source hardware and software designs, PhoneBot provides an affordable, reproducible platform for education, research, and rapid prototyping. More details are available at https://phonebot.dev.
Innovation
Methods, ideas, or system contributions that make the work stand out.
Humanoid Robot
Smartphone Repurposing
Open-Source Platform
Low-Cost Robotics
Modular Design
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