UCLA's PhoneBot uses an Android phone as its brain and eyes
The 48.3 cm bipedal robot runs its neural network on the phone's processor and costs about 400 dollars to build, excluding the handset.
Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) have built a small bipedal robot called PhoneBot that uses an Android smartphone as its body, eyes and brain, with the results posted on the preprint site arXiv.
The robot stands 48.3 cm tall and weighs about 1.8 kg. It is driven by 13 low-cost servo motors, 6 in each leg and 1 for the torso joint.
The smartphone's camera handles vision and its IMU sensor helps the robot balance, while the phone's processor runs the neural network that drives the joints. Excluding the handset, the build cost is about 400 dollars, roughly 530,000 Korean won.
The team tested PhoneBot with a 2017 Honor 9 and with four low-cost Android phones priced at 50 to 80 dollars, and the robot's basic functions worked on all of them.
Limits and next steps
PhoneBot currently has no arms and can walk only on flat ground. The researchers plan future work on rough terrain, adding lightweight robot arms and LLM-based motion planning, along with running language models on the smartphone itself.
Quick answers
What is PhoneBot?
PhoneBot is a 48.3 cm bipedal walking robot built by UCLA researchers that uses an Android smartphone as its body, eyes and brain.
How much does PhoneBot cost to build?
Excluding the smartphone, the build cost is about 400 dollars, roughly 530,000 Korean won, using 13 low-cost servo motors.
Can PhoneBot walk on uneven ground?
No. It currently has no arms and can only walk on flat ground; rough-terrain work is planned for the future.