TurtleBot is a low-cost, personal robot kit with open source software. TurtleBot was created at Willow Garage by Melonee Wise and Tully Foote in November 2010. The TurtleBot kit consists of a mobile base, 3D Sensor, laptop computer, and the TurtleBot mounting hardware kit. In addition to the TurtleBot kit, users can download the TurtleBot SDK from the ROS wiki. TurtleBot is designed to be easy to buy, build, and assemble, using off the shelfconsumer products and parts that easily can be created from standard materials. As an entry levelmobile robotics platform, TurtleBot has many of the same capabilities of the company's larger robotics platforms, like PR2, Care-O-Bot. With TurtleBot, users can drive around and map their environment, see in 3D, and have enough horsepower to create their own applications.
Technology
With the standard TurtleBot components users can use TurtleBot to do realtime obstacle avoidance and autonomous navigation. TurtleBot can run standard Simultaneous localization and mapping algorithms to build a map and can be controlled remotely from a laptop or Android-based smart phone. TurtleBot can also follow a person’s legs as they walk in a room. Also accessories are available to leverage the ROS arm navigation capabilities, an arm attachment has been developed for manipulating wooden blocks and other objects.
TurtleBot 1
TurtleBot 1 consists of an iRobot Create base, a 3000 mAh battery pack, a TurtleBot power board with gyro, a Kinect sensor, an Asus 1215N laptop with a dual core processor, and a hardware mounting kit attaching everything together and adding future sensors. Assembling the kit is quick and easy using a single allen wrench.
TurtleBot 2
TurtleBot 2 consists of an , a 2200 mAh battery pack, a Kinect sensor, an Asus 1215N laptop with a dual core processor, fast charger, and a hardware mounting kit attaching everything together and adding future sensors. Assembling the kit is quick and easy using a single allen wrench. Additionally TurtleBot 2 comes with a fast charging dock that TurtleBot can autonomously dock with, enabling continuous operation.
TurtleBot 3
Turtlebot 3, announced and developed in collaboration with ROBOTIS and Open Source Robotics Foundation, is the smallest and cheapest of its generation. It has outstanding structural expansion capability due to ROBOTIS’ renowned modular structure with the DYNAMIXEL. Turtlebot 3 will become available in 2 kits, the Turtlebot3 Burger and Turlebot3 Waffle. The Burger will come with 2pcs of the DYNAMIXEL XL-430-W350-T servo, a Raspberry Pi board, laser distance sensor, microSD card, Lithium polymer battery, quickstart and parts. The Waffle will come with 2pcs of the DYNAMIXEL XM430-W210-T servo, Intel Joule board, Intel RealSense and laser distance sensors, Lithium polymer battery, quickstart and parts.
has TurtleBot3 plugins for the Gazebo robotics simulator that will let you simulate a TB3 Burger, Waffle, or Waffle Pi.
Community
As with many other ROS platforms, one of the biggest strengths of the TurtleBot is its support community. TurtleBot has a worldwide community is constantly growing with thousands of TurtleBots around the world. TurtleBot has been adopted by many research labs for doing multi-robot research and human robot interaction research. Additionally many universities are using the TurtleBot to teach introductory robotics courses.
Licensing
TurtleBot is a licensed trademark that is maintained by the Open Source Robotics Foundation. The Open Source Robotics Foundation licenses the use of the TurtleBot trademark for manufacturing and distributing TurtleBot branded products.
