Leader-Free Mobile ALOHA: Gamepad-IK Teleoperation and VLA Fine-Tuning for Laboratory Manipulation

We present a leader-arm-free teleoperation system that uses a standard gamepad with inverse kinematics (IK) to control the full Mobile ALOHA platform—both bimanual arms and the mobile base. Unlike the standard leader-follower interface, which physically tethers the operator to the robot, our gamepad-IK approach decouples the operator, enabling them to walk close to the robot for visual precision and move freely around the workspace to find optimal viewing angles. We demonstrate this system on three laboratory manipulation tasks including precision pipette tip attachment, tube pick-and-place, and bimanual pipette tip release, showcasing the system’s capability for both single-arm and coordinated bimanual control. Using 55 minutes of gamepad-collected demonstrations, we fine-tune the π0.5 VLA and show that the resulting policy can correctly select the appropriate arm based on object position and successfully execute tube pickup, with robust visual tracking of object positions during execution. Code, videos, and dataset are available at: https://shengfeng-yang.github.io/aloha-gamepad/

Recommended citation: S. Yang. "Leader-Free Mobile ALOHA: Gamepad-IK Teleoperation and VLA Fine-Tuning for Laboratory Manipulation. " 2026 Project Website : https://shengfeng-yang.github.io/aloha-gamepad/. https://shengfeng-yang.github.io/aloha-gamepad/