Meet Mobile ALOHA: The user-friendly robot for cooking, cleaning, and medicine reminders

The tech field constantly introduces impressive innovations, with evolving tools making their mark in the market.

Recently, a remarkable AI tool named 'ALOHA' has emerged, designed by Tony Z. Zhao, a part-time student researcher at Stanford and a Google Deepmind collaborator.

Mobile ALOHA, standing for 'A Low-cost Open-source Hardware' System for Bimanual Teleoperation, is a multifunctional robot that handles various tasks, from house cleaning to making tea and even playing games with pets.

Tony Z. Zhao, a Stanford CS PhD student, proudly shared a video on the 'X' platform, expressing excitement about the project's progress.

Introducing ALOHA 🏖: 𝐀 𝐋ow-cost 𝐎pen-source 𝐇𝐀rdware System for Bimanual Teleoperation

After 8 months iterating @stanford and 2 months working with beta users, we are finally ready to release it!

Here is what ALOHA is capable of: pic.twitter.com/lR7gLOgwTZ

— Tony Z. Zhao (@tonyzzhao) March 27, 2023

Mobile ALOHA is intended to simplify tasks for humans, allowing remote control of impressive cooking skills and other activities.

It is important to note that Mobile ALOHA is not fully autonomous; instead, it requires human guidance, much like a well-driven sports car.

The key feature of Mobile ALOHA is its user-friendly design, emphasising simplicity, reliability, and performance.

The impressive cooking skills are remotely controlled by HUMANs.

ALOHA is NOT independently autonomous. Think of ALOHA as well-made sports car hardware.

The superb racing skill is displayed by a human behind the wheel, not a self-driving AI.#ALOHA #AI pic.twitter.com/IP3gpgt3Uv

— Soumya Prakash Pradhan (@soumyaonlines) January 29, 2024

The robot has two leader arms and two follower arms, syncing joint positions at a rate of 50Hz.

Users can control the robot by moving the leader arms, making it intuitive and responsive.

Mobile ALOHA capabilities include precise tasks like RAM insertion, dynamic activities like ping pong ball juggling, and contact-rich tasks such as putting on a shoe.
During 8 months of testing, there were no motor failures, demonstrating its reliability, as per the Tony Z. Zhao report.

For those interested in building Mobile ALOHA, Tony Z. Zhao has open-sourced all the necessary information and provided a detailed tutorial.

The setup involves off-the-shelf robots and 3D printed components.

ALOHA is trained to perform specific tasks, and its hardware and software are open-source, encouraging innovation and learning.

However, the current cost of Mobile ALOHA is relatively high, priced at Rs. 24,94,317 rupees, which may be a barrier for many potential users in India.

Mass production could potentially reduce the cost, making this advanced technology more accessible to a wider audience.