robotindex AgileX PiPER
A fully assembled, manufactured 6-axis desktop arm from AgileX Robotics — a Shenzhen company better known for mobile robot platforms like Scout and Ranger, now expanding into embodied-AI manipulator hardware. Sits between hobbyist kits like SO-101 and true industrial cobots: closed mechanical design with a genuinely open-source Python SDK and ROS driver on top, aimed at teleoperation, data collection, and imitation-learning research (ACT, Diffusion Policy) rather than factory-floor automation.
global.agilex.ai/products/piper →
Image: user-submitted
Specs
Weight
4.2 kgarm only, per AgileX's official product page
Software
piper_sdk + piper_rosboth genuinely MIT-licensed; ROS1 Noetic confirmed, ROS2 claimed by AgileX but not independently verified in the repoDegrees of Freedom
6 axesconsistent across official spec sheet and manual
Payload
1.5kga reseller listing showing 1kg appears stale/inconsistent with official specs
Actuators
Not disclosedAgileX doesn't publish servo brand/model or backlash figures — a real transparency gap
Controller
External host requiredCAN bus native, USB via CAN adapter; no onboard compute — BYO PC or Jetson
Reach
626mmone US reseller lists 615mm — treat the official spec/manual figure as authoritative
Repeatability
±0.1mm (official)a third-party blog claims ±0.05mm — unverified, treat the official figure as authoritative
Construction
Manufactured aluminumclosed mechanical design, not an open-hardware kit
End Effector
Parallel 2-finger gripper0–70mm opening, 40N clamp force; a separate force-feedback teleop gripper also exists
Reference Price
AgileX's own global store lists the arm at $1,999 (about €2,000 ex-VAT via Génération Robots in the EU), sold arm-only with compute (a PC or NVIDIA Jetson) bring-your-own. US resellers (usrobotstore, Silicon Valley Robotics Center) charge $3,990–$3,999 for the same product — likely import/distribution markup rather than a different variant — and 2025 press cited a $2,499 launch price, so the figure varies meaningfully by source.
Insights
PiPER is a fully assembled, closed-hardware arm — AgileX doesn't publish its actuators' brand, model, or backlash specs — while the software layer (
piper_sdk, piper_ros) carries verified MIT licenses, though the ROS2-compatibility claim is vendor-stated rather than independently confirmed; this catalog's Open Source badge covers only that SDK/ROS layer.Firmware & Community
agilexrobotics/piper_sdk
AgileX's own official Python SDK for controlling the PiPER arm, published under its GitHub organization.
Specs compiled from AgileX's official product page and user manual, Génération Robots' EU listing, the piper_sdk and piper_ros GitHub repositories (LICENSE files verified directly), an independent arXiv teleoperation paper, and a third-party SDK-wrapper repo's integration notes. Several details are flagged as unconfirmed or conflicting above: repeatability (official ±0.1mm vs. a third-party ±0.05mm claim), reach/payload/weight (one US reseller's figures conflict with official specs), full ROS2 support (vendor-claimed, not independently verified), actuator brand/model (never disclosed), and current price (ranges from $1,999 official to $3,990+ via some US resellers). This entry hasn't yet been cross-linked into the rest of the Robot Arms subcategory or synced to the directory listing; that's planned for a later pass.