# Reproducible Vision-Guided 6-DoF Robotic Manipulator with a Mixed Stepper-Driver Architecture and Browser-Native Control

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.22799 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2608.22799/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 2 of its 30 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 24 Aug 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 2 of 2)

- [A low-cost and lightweight 6 DoF bimanual arm for dynamic and contact-rich manipulation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2502.16908/) (2025)
- [Strong, Accurate, and Low-Cost Robot Manipulator](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.15693/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

We present the NeuralNexus Arm, an open, low-cost 6-DOF robotic manipulator built by an undergraduate engineering team, together with the design decisions and debugging experience needed to reproduce it. The arm is driven by a single STM32H743 microcontroller on a custom printed circuit board (PCB) and combines two stepper-driver strategies on one controller: push-pull 3.3 V step/direction outputs for onboard TMC2209 drivers on the three wrist joints, and open-drain outputs for external CL57T and DM542 drivers on the three high-torque proximal joints. We describe the mechanical design, mixed-driver electronics, interrupt-driven firmware, a MATLAB/Simscape-based inverse-kinematics pipeline, a browser-native control interface using the Web Serial API, and a lightweight vision pipeline for object localisation and autonomous pick-and-place tasks. We also document non-obvious hardware and firmware failure modes encountered during the transition from a development board to the custom PCB as reproducibility guidance. All design files and firmware are released openly. The platform actuates all six axes under coordinated control at a 2 kHz update rate and executes both manual and pre-recorded motions from the browser interface.