U-ARM : Ultra low-cost general teleoperation interface for robot manipulation

TL;DR

This work tackles the high cost and limited compatibility of existing teleoperation interfaces for robotic manipulation by introducing U-Arm, an ultra-low-cost leader-follower system with three configurations that generalize to most commercial arms. The authors combine low-cost, 3D-printed hardware with a calibration and filtering algorithm and servo-modification strategies to achieve stable, intuitive control across 6-DoF and 7-DoF platforms. The system delivers about $50.5$ for the 6-DoF and $56.8$ for the 7-DoF arm, achieves a 39% improvement in data collection efficiency over Joy-Con while maintaining comparable task success rates, and results in smoother, more human-like trajectories. The work is complemented by open-source CAD models, simulation support in SAPIEN/ ManiSkill, and real-world datasets, enabling rapid construction of customized data-collection pipelines for diverse robotic platforms.

Abstract

We propose U-Arm, a low-cost and rapidly adaptable leader-follower teleoperation framework designed to interface with most of commercially available robotic arms. Our system supports teleoperation through three structurally distinct 3D-printed leader arms that share consistent control logic, enabling seamless compatibility with diverse commercial robot configurations. Compared with previous open-source leader-follower interfaces, we further optimized both the mechanical design and servo selection, achieving a bill of materials (BOM) cost of only \$50.5 for the 6-DoF leader arm and \$56.8 for the 7-DoF version. To enhance usability, we mitigate the common challenge in controlling redundant degrees of freedom by %engineering methods mechanical and control optimizations. Experimental results demonstrate that U-Arm achieves 39\% higher data collection efficiency and comparable task success rates across multiple manipulation scenarios compared with Joycon, another low-cost teleoperation interface. We have open-sourced all CAD models of three configs and also provided simulation support for validating teleoperation workflows. We also open-sourced real-world manipulation data collected with U-Arm. The project website is https://github.com/MINT-SJTU/LeRobot-Anything-U-Arm.

Figures (7)

• Figure 1: Overview of our proposed U-Arm, an ultra low-cost and general teleoperation interface for robot manipulation. U-Arm provides three distinct mechanical configurations (Config-1, Config-2, Config-3), enabling adaptation to more than 95% of commercial robotic arms. The system supports both direct real-world teleoperation and simulation-based testing, with calibration, filtering, and interpolation modules ensuring stable and high-quality data collection. Deployment is supported in SAPIEN as well as real-world robot platforms via ROS.
• Figure 2: Joint axis arrangements of commercial robot arms.
• Figure 3: CAD overviews of three configurations of U-Arm.
• Figure 4: We setup three different robotic arms (ARX-X5, XArm, Panda) for teleoperation example in simulation, corresponding to three U-Arm configs.
• Figure 5: Real-world manipulation tasks performed with U-Arm Config2 and XArm6. These tasks include large-range movement fine-grained operations and tasks that demand dexterity. Time cost and success rate are recorded for each demonstration.