Stretch Research Edition

Source-backed capabilities

• Workflows: Autonomous navigation, object handling, dual-arm or arm-based manipulation, teleoperation and facility task execution.
• Operating environments: Factories, warehouses, labs, service sites and controlled indoor environments where wheeled manipulation can operate safely.
• Target markets: Industrial operators, logistics teams, research labs and service organizations evaluating mobile manipulation.
• Deployment model: Commercial or available product positioned for customer use, integration or developer adoption.
• Whole-body loco-manipulation

  Claimed - 2020-07-14 - Hello Robot emerged from stealth and introduced Stretch Research Edition as an open-source mobile manipulation platform for home and workplace robotics research.

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Supply / Components

• Stretch Research Edition

  Smart Servo Actuator - Motion Components - ROBOTIS - Hello Robot's earlier Stretch Research Edition used ROBOTIS DYNAMIXEL servos in its head and end-of-arm assemblies - source: docs.hello-robot.com

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• Stretch Research Edition

  Rplidar - robot_sensing - SLAMTEC - Hello Robot Stretch Research Edition used SLAMTEC RPLIDAR for laser ranging - source: dev-docs.hello-robot.com

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• Stretch Research Edition

  Realsense D435i - robot_vision - RealSense - Hello Robot Stretch Research Edition used a RealSense D435i head camera - source: forum.hello-robot.com

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• Human Recognition–Driven Interaction with Hello Robot Stretch for Supporting Older Adults

  2026-06-10 - Research Publication - The ARSO paper uses Hello Robot Stretch for human-recognition-driven interaction in older-adult support.

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• Hello Stretch Robot 3: Human-Robot Interaction Study Questionnaire (English/Estonian) and 42 response items

  2026-06-10 - Research Publication - This is the full study questionnaire used in an exploratory pilot on human-robot interaction (HRI) with a Hello Robot Stretch 3 mobile manipulator. The instrument was administered after a short embodied session (tennis-ball handover / visual-servoing demo) and collects matched retrospective “before” and direct “after” items for perceived trust, physical safety, and privacy or data-security concern, together with items on interaction experience, boundaries and control, and background demographics. The PDF bundles the English and Estonian versions of the same instrument for transparency and reuse. The design is a single post-session questionnaire with matched pre/post wording (a retrospective pretest style), which is convenient in field settings but has known limitations (recall, response shift, then-test effects); results should be interpreted as descriptive and feasibility-oriented, not

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• YOLOv8-PnP fusion architecture for non-contact robotic pollination: a 6D pose estimation approach for autonomous greenhouse operations

  2026-03-26 - Research Publication - Background: The declining availability of natural pollinators and limitations of contact-based robotic pollination methods including flower damage, pathogen transmission, and reduced operational efficiency necessitate innovative solutions for protected horticulture. Gap: Existing robotic pollinators achieve limited success rates (∼ 66%) primarily due to inaccurate 6D flower pose estimation, while current airflow-based systems lack precise positioning capabilities. Contribution: This study presents a novel YOLOv8-PnP hybrid framework integrating real-time object detection with 6 degree of freedom pose estimation for precision airflow based pollination. The system employs a custom-designed Air Pollenmatic end-effector integrated with a Hello Robot Stretch platform through ROS-based visual servoing control. Results: Validation on 2,100 annotated greenhouse images demonstrated 95.8% precisio

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• Hello Stretch Robot 3: Human-Robot Interaction Study Questionnaire (English/Estonian)

  2026-03-15 - Research Publication - This is the full study questionnaire used in an exploratory pilot on human-robot interaction (HRI) with a Hello Robot Stretch 3 mobile manipulator. The instrument was administered after a short embodied session (tennis-ball handover / visual-servoing demo) and collects matched retrospective “before” and direct “after” items for perceived trust, physical safety, and privacy or data-security concern, together with items on interaction experience, boundaries and control, and background demographics. The PDF bundles the English and Estonian versions of the same instrument for transparency and reuse. The design is a single post-session questionnaire with matched pre/post wording (a retrospective pretest style), which is convenient in field settings but has known limitations (recall, response shift, then-test effects); results should be interpreted as descriptive and feasibility-oriented, not

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• NhiNguyencmt8/StretchMapping: First release

  2026-02-16 - Research Publication - A semantic mapping framework built on Khronos and ORB-SLAM2 for creating a semantic map using the Hello Robot Stretch mobile manipulator.

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• Robotic support for older adults with cognitive and mobility impairments

  2025-04-07 - Research Publication - Introduction: Robots have the potential to support older adults with cognitive impairments and mobility impairments in daily tasks that could promote their independence, enhance their abilities, ensure safety, and lower healthcare costs. Method: Using a participatory design approach, we focused on identifying the functional capabilities of the Stretch robot to support older adults with various cognitive or mobility impairments. Twelve participants (aged 60-97) were recruited to interact with the robot and give feedback regarding support in a home environment. Stretch is a mobile robot manipulator designed to support everyday activities using a lightweight telescoping arm mounted on a mobile base. We conducted a semi-structured interview with participants as they observed and interacted with Stretch, performing tasks such as providing reminders, picking up and delivering items, and facili

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• Implicit Communication in Human-Robot Collaborative Transport

  2025-02-05 - Research Publication - We focus on human-robot collaborative transport, in which a robot and a user collaboratively move an object to a goal pose.

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• ANAVI: Audio Noise Awareness using Visuals of Indoor environments for NAVIgation

  2024-10-24 - Research Publication - We propose Audio Noise Awareness using Visuals of Indoors for NAVIgation for quieter robot path planning.

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• Coherence-Driven Multimodal Safety Dialogue with Active Learning for Embodied Agents

  2024-10-18 - Research Publication - When assisting people in daily tasks, robots need to accurately interpret visual cues and respond effectively in diverse safety-critical situations, such as sharp objects on the floor.

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• Robot Utility Models: General Policies for Zero-Shot Deployment in New Environments

  2024-09-09 - Research Publication - Robot models, particularly those trained with large amounts of data, have recently shown a plethora of real-world manipulation and navigation capabilities.

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• Automated Robot Recovery from Assumption Violations of High-Level Specifications

  2024-06-30 - Research Publication - This paper presents a framework that enables robots to automatically recover from assumption violations of high-level specifications during task execution.

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• OK-Robot evaluates open-vocabulary mobile manipulation on Stretch

  2024-01-22 - Research Publication - Remarkable progress has been made in recent years in the fields of vision, language, and robotics. We now have vision models capable of recognizing objects based on language queries, navigation systems that can effectively control mobile systems, and grasping models that can handle a wide range of objects.

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• HomeRobot: An Open Source Software Stack for Mobile Manipulation Research

  2024-01-22 - Research Publication - Reproducibility in robotics research requires capable, shared hardware platforms which can be used for a wide variety of research. We’ve seen the power of these sorts of shared platforms in more general machine learning research, where there is constant iteration on shared AI platforms like PyTorch. To be able to make rapid progress in robotics in the same way, we propose that we need: (1) shared real-world platforms which allow different teams to test and compare methods at low cost; (2) challenging simulations that reflect real-world environments and especially can drive perception and planning research; and (3) low-cost platforms with enough software to get started addressing all of these problems. To this end, we propose HomeRobot, a mobile manipulator software stack with associated benchmark in simulation, which is initially based on the low-cost, human-safe Hello Robot Stretch.

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• Stretch with Stretch: Physical Therapy Exercise Games Led by a Mobile Manipulator

  2023-12-20 - Research Publication - Physical therapy (PT) is a key component of many rehabilitation regimens, such as treatments for Parkinson's disease (PD).

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• An Assistive Robot in an Indoor Scenario: the Stretch Hello Robot as Environment Organizer

  2023-10-25 - Research Publication - The MetroXRAINE paper uses Stretch Hello Robot as an assistive indoor environment organizer.

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• HomeRobot: Open-Vocabulary Mobile Manipulation

  2023-06-20 - Research Publication - HomeRobot (noun): An affordable compliant robot that navigates homes and manipulates a wide range of objects in order to complete everyday tasks. Open-Vocabulary Mobile Manipulation (OVMM) is the problem of picking any object in any unseen environment, and placing it in a commanded location.

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• Custom teleoperation-interface study evaluates Stretch RE1 in assistive kitchen tasks

  2023-04-05 - Research Publication - This paper covers Custom teleoperation-interface study evaluates Stretch RE1 in assistive kitchen tasks for Stretch Research Edition in Human-robot interaction.

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• Online Modifications for Event-based Signal Temporal Logic Specifications

  2023-03-31 - Research Publication - The control framework modifies timed robot tasks at runtime in response to warnings, environmental changes or revised user goals.

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• Force/Torque Sensing for Soft Grippers using an External Camera

  2022-09-30 - Research Publication - Robotic manipulation can benefit from wrist-mounted force/torque (F/T) sensors, but conventional F/T sensors can be expensive, difficult to install, and damaged by high loads.

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• Walleclipse/WeHelp

  2022-05-10 - Research Publication - WeHelp: A Shared Autonomy System for Wheelchair Users. A robot with a WeHelp system has three modes, following mode, remote control mode and tele-operation mode.

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• Visual Pressure Estimation and Control for Soft Robotic Grippers

  2022-04-14 - Research Publication - Soft robotic grippers facilitate contact-rich manipulation, including robust grasping of varied objects.

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• Stretch design paper details a compact mobile manipulator for indoor environments

  2021-09-22 - Research Publication - Mobile manipulators for indoor human environments can serve as versatile devices that perform a variety of tasks, yet adoption of this technology has been limited.

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• Hello Robot introduces Stretch Research Edition mobile manipulator

  2020-07-14 - Product Launch - Hello Robot emerged from stealth and introduced Stretch Research Edition as an open-source mobile manipulation platform for home and workplace robotics research. The first Stretch platform was priced at USD 17,950 and focused on researchers and developers rather than consumer deployment. The launch established Hello Robot's non-humanoid approach to useful home robotics through a lightweight mobile base, telescoping arm and gripper.

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Market context

Original research-focused Stretch platform from Hello Robot, establishing the company's compact mobile-manipulation approach for home and lab robotics.

• Target environment: Factories, warehouses, labs, service sites and controlled indoor environments where wheeled manipulation can operate safely.
• Workflow context: Autonomous navigation, object handling, dual-arm or arm-based manipulation, teleoperation and facility task execution.
• Customer context: Industrial operators, logistics teams, research labs and service organizations evaluating mobile manipulation.
• Deployment model: Commercial or available product positioned for customer use, integration or developer adoption.
• Commercial maturity: Publicly presented as commercial or available, with maturity depending on deployment scale and support coverage.
• Adoption constraints: Adoption depends on site fit, manipulation reliability, safety, navigation, integration effort and task economics.
• Market position: Stretch Research Edition sits in the mobile-manipulation lane, using mobility plus arms to pursue practical physical tasks.
• Adjacent products: Kinisi 01, DexForce W1, Stretch RE2, Quanta X2

Comparable Systems

• Stretch 4

  Hello Robot - Mobile Manipulator