Why Your Robot Controller Matters More Than You Think

June 06, 2025.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re building a robot for an academic project or as part of a startup. In this day and age, you can’t ignore how important robot controllers are — both in the lab and in the real world. You take any robotics startup today — at least the ones that are building mobile robots, most carry a controller.

Why? Because no matter how autonomous your robot is, you eventually need to test it, debug it, and most importantly, demonstrate it's capabilities in diverse environments. You don't always have the luxury of mapping the space ahead of the demo or connecting your robot to a stable WiFi network.  Hence, nothing makes this process of demonstrating the type of problems your robot can solve to a potential customer easier than having a controller in hand.

Yet, despite its importance, there are probably only a handful of folks in this space who talk about controllers. I understand there are sensors, there is ROS, and modern vision language models that often take precedence over controllers. That leaves the next generation of robotics students and founders with a ton of questions unanswered around controllers. I have received a lot of these questions over the last few months.

Hence, in today’s essay, I’ve tried to reflect on the role of controllers and distilled a framework that you can adopt to select one for your project. Let's start with their role. 

Why Controllers Matter In Startups & Academic Projects? 

There are three core reasons why controllers matter a lot in both startups and academic projects. We will cover each of these one by one. 

Laptops Aren’t Built for Field Operations 

In robotics, most of us rely on laptops to build, test and debug robot code. That works in a controlled environment, your lab or office. But then you find yourself at a conference or a client site, awkwardly balancing a laptop in one hand, eyes darting between the screen of the laptop and the robot as it moves. That’s when you realize: carrying a 2 pound laptop just to run basic tests or demonstrate a feature during a demo  isn’t freedom; it’s a burden. A controller makes it less stressful.  Beyond laptops, networks are your next major bottlenecks in robotics. 

Networks Aren't Always Reliable

I am yet to meet a robotics founder who hasn't felt the pain of network-linked failures in a demo. We all get it, robot demos are highly dependent on the quality of network connection. Once you do a dozen demos at clients sites, you realize, betting on a stable WiFi network for a demo at a client site is like predicting a dust storm in the desert. You can't. This is where a robot controller saves the day.  A Bluetooth controller, connected straight to the onboard robot computer, becomes a lifesaver for such demos enabling you to demonstrate the problems your robot can solve for your client without letting unreliable network connection come in your way.  Beyond network connection, the size of the site in which your robot will operate also matters a lot. 

Site Mapping Without Controller Is Inefficient

Once you demo your robot and the client signs on, what’s next? You send your operations team onsite to map the space using SLAM or similar mapping algorithms. But asking your engineer to juggle a laptop while watching the robot navigate this new space as it maps the new site is a needless hassle — it wastes time, drains energy, and slows the process down. A controller frees them to focus on what matters: the robot’s performance and the client’s needs.

In short, controllers save time, reduce stress, and make operations more reliable. Yet despite their importance, they’re rarely covered in current discourses on robotics. Sensors, ROS, and AI modules often steal the spotlight in these sessions, leaving robotics students and founders with unanswered questions.

That said, picking the right controller isn’t always obvious — and that brings us to the next question.

What approach can founders and students take to choose a controller?

The choice of controller totally depends on both the scope of your project and your budget.

If you are a founder at the very early stage of your journey in robotics and tight on budget, you can basically opt for an XBOX controller that can be easily integrated with the robot computer over the Bluetooth interface using standard ROS nodes. This is probably going to be your best option if you are tight on budget. Same applies if you are a student and building your first ROS robot.

If you want to take this a step ahead, you can basically develop a web interface — think about a Python-enabled Flask web app. locally hosted on the robot computer and securely exposed over the HTTPS interface. You can then send commands to your robot by accessing this web app. from a phone or laptop. That’s the second approach. This approach also allows you to add camera streams and sensor data to this web app.

Now, if you are in the early stages of development, a web interface may not be a viable solution and might consume a lot of time to build. So if you still need a physical controller but with much better range than the Bluetooth controller discussed in the first approach, you can opt for an RC controller. These are relatively expensive compared with the Bluetooth controller but can expand the range well beyond what you get with Bluetooth. This is the kind being used by several startups in the early stage — one of them being Luminous, which is deploying robots to help with solar farm installations.

If you are building commercial-grade robots and your use case demands that the end user — say, a customer or field operator — needs direct control, then a physical controller becomes essential. Think Boston Dynamics’ Spot. In scenarios like remote inspection, maintenance, or operations in unpredictable environments, having a physical controller in hand is a much more practical solution than carrying around a full laptop. In such cases, you can integrate a joystick connected to a tablet, allowing you to stream data from the robot to the tablet and send commands to your teleop node through the controller. Here’s an example of the one used by Boston Dynamics’ Spot robot.

If none of these options are viable in your case and you just need a basic wireless controller for your robot, you can essentially start with a wireless keyboard — it does the job. It operates on the Bluetooth interface, which gives you a range of 30 ft (that’s up to ~9 meters), which is sufficient in most cases for standard indoor applications.

Always Carry a Controller

Here’s a rule I’ve learned the hard way: never show up for a client demo or deployment without a controller. There are so many real-world scenarios — ranging from unstable Wi-Fi connection and last-minute sensor failures to site-specific constraints that can prevent you from mapping a site before the demo— where the controller saves the day.

During the early phase of our robotics startup, I’ve mapped countless sites and conducted demos for our clients across the U.S. — from top tech companies  to those operating in the automobile, banking, and pharma industries. Again and again, the controller proved essential — so essential, I carried two. Because the only thing worse than not having one is watching your only controller fail.

A controller also lets you stay fully engaged with the customer during demos — you can operate the robot confidently without getting buried in a laptop. They were just as critical at conferences like CES Las Vegas and the National Sports Safety and Security Conference as they were during demos we conducted for Fortune 500 firms, where reliable performance mattered.

Robot controllers rarely get attention in robotics discourses. But they should. Because when you’re out in the real world, making things work under pressure, they’re one of the most practical, reliable tools you have. And that, more than any technical spec or academic debate, is why they matter.

Cheers,

Prathamesh 

Disclaimer: This blog is for educational purposes only and does not constitute financial, business, or legal advice. The experiences shared are based on past events. All opinions expressed are those of the author and do not represent the views of any mentioned companies. Readers are solely responsible for conducting their own due diligence and should seek professional legal or financial advice tailored to their specific circumstances. The author and publisher make no representations or warranties regarding the accuracy of the content and expressly disclaim any liability for decisions made or actions taken based on this blog.