A team of researchers at Georgia Tech has developed a brand-new smartphone-based system that could dramatically simplify how people interact with robots. Called COBALT, the platform lets users with little to no coding experience remotely control robotic arms from virtually anywhere in the world using just a phone and an internet connection.
How COBALT works
The system, built at Georgia Tech’s People, AI & Robotics (PAIR) Lab, turns smartphones into motion controllers for robotic arms. Users simply move their phones in different directions, and the robot mirrors those movements in real time. Common tasks like grabbing, shifting, and releasing objects can be handled through simple on-screen controls, making the experience feel more like playing a mobile game than operating industrial machinery.
Ayush Agarwal, a Ph.D. student in Georgia Tech’s College of Interactive Computing who leads the COBALT research team, said the system was deliberately designed to make robotics accessible to beginners rather than experts. During testing, participants from countries including India, Indonesia, and Pakistan remotely controlled robotic arms located in Georgia Tech’s lab despite having no prior robotics experience.
Researchers believe crowdsourcing could shape the future of robotics
The broader goal behind COBALT extends beyond convenience. Researchers say the platform could solve one of robotics’ most challenging problems: collecting enough real-world training data to improve AI-powered robotic systems.
Traditional robots require enormous amounts of policy-training data to learn how to perform physical tasks reliably. According to Assistant Professor Animesh Garg, who directs the PAIR Lab, simulation alone isn’t enough to prepare robots for large-scale deployment. Instead, researchers envision a crowdsourced network where millions of smartphone users passively contribute operational data by remotely interacting with robots.
Garg compared the concept to tapping into the nearly five billion smartphone users worldwide. By lowering the barrier to entry, the team hopes to build a scalable global system capable of accelerating robot learning and automation.
The technology could also have significant educational implications. Georgia Tech researchers recently demonstrated COBALT to students from Midtown High School in Atlanta, letting them remotely control robotic arms using smartphones. The simplicity of the interface could make robotics education more accessible in classrooms without expensive equipment or specialized hardware.
A future ‘gig economy’ for robots might not be far off
The researchers also believe COBALT could eventually enable entirely new forms of remote work. Garg described the possibility of a robot-powered gig economy where people remotely operate assistive robots in homes, warehouses, or factories from anywhere in the world.
In practical terms, that could mean a manufacturing robot autonomously handles most tasks but requests human help when it encounters a difficult situation. Rather than requiring on-site workers, remote operators could quickly take control via their phones before handing the operation back to the AI system.
Agarwal noted that user studies showed smartphones were preferred over VR headsets, keyboards, or traditional controllers because they felt more intuitive while still offering high-quality control data. The system also minimizes latency by using WebRTC technology, the same platform used by services like Zoom and Google Meet, ensuring robot movements and live video streams remain responsive even across long distances.
The research paper on COBALT is being presented this week at the IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation in Vienna, where the team is showcasing not just the technology itself, but the large-scale remote operation network built around it.
