Nori A3: A Bimanual Mobile Manipulator at the Appliance Price Point

Abstract

We present Nori A3, a 19-DoF bimanual mobile manipulator that ships assembled for $1,688. In a 45 x 45 cm footprint at 20.4 kg, a three-stage telescoping column carries the head and both arms from 69 cm to 145 cm in height, giving floor-to-counter reach; each 55 cm arm has 7+1 DoF and a 1.5 kg payload, alongside lidar navigation and four cameras. This is roughly a fifth of the parts cost of the cheapest comparable research platform. The capabilities usually lost at this price are recovered in software rather than by buying more expensive parts. A protection architecture eliminates the thermal burn-out of commodity serial-bus servos, attacking both the stall conditions that cause it and, through a two-tier interlock, the temperature rise itself. A sensorless grip-force channel recovers a continuous force estimate from the servo's own current register. A3 has been shipping to customers since July 2026; we give the design rationale and the per-joint actuator selection.