# ob-f/OpenBot

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.

Repository: https://github.com/ob-f/OpenBot
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/openbot
Homepage: https://www.openbot.org
Language: Swift
License: MIT
License Family: permissive
Topics: openbot, android, smartphone, robot, robotics, education, research, arduino, deeplearning
Last push: 2026-08-26T04:41:41+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 67/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 99, release rhythm 8, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 2224, "days_push": 7, "days_rel": 548, "gap_med": null, "n_releases_24m": 1}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 3442, forks 661 (observed 2026-08-28T04:08:05.106097+00:00)

## What it is
OpenBot is an open-source project that turns Android smartphones into the brains of low-cost robots, paired with a ~$50 electric vehicle body and Arduino firmware. Its software stack supports advanced robotics workloads such as person following and real-time autonomous navigation.

## Use cases
- build a low-cost robot using a smartphone as its brain
- implement person following on a mobile robot
- run real-time autonomous navigation experiments
- train and deploy driving policies for a wheeled robot
- use robotics for education and research on a budget
- program a robot via Arduino firmware and Android apps

## When to choose
- you want an affordable, open robotics platform for education or research
- you want to leverage smartphone sensors and compute for robot perception and control
- you want to experiment with deep-learning-based robot policies
- you want a hackable hardware-plus-software stack with Arduino and Android components

## When to avoid
- you need industrial-grade or safety-certified robotics hardware
- you require non-Android control hardware or iOS support
- you need manipulator arms or drones rather than a wheeled vehicle

## Facets
- artifact type: application
- maturity: active
- function: machine-learning, computer-vision, robotics, deep-learning
- domain: robotics, education, machine-learning, computer-vision, autonomous-vehicles
- platform: iot, cross-platform
- tags: smartphone-robot, low-cost-robotics, person-following, autonomous-navigation, arduino-firmware, driving-policy, stem-education, android

## Member repositories
- ob-f/OpenBot (main) score 67

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:08:05.106097+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T18:37:38.330728+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/ob-f/OpenBot (fetched 2026-08-28T04:08:05.106097+00:00, sha a7164e6d3fe5)
  - homepage: https://www.openbot.org (fetched 2026-08-29T09:31:30.195507+00:00, sha a5ddf679873a)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.