robotindex TurtleBot4
An open-source ROS 2 reference robot built by Clearpath Robotics on an iRobot Create 3 base, with a Raspberry Pi 4B, RPLIDAR A1M8, and a Luxonis OAK-D depth camera. It's the standard teaching and research platform for the ROS ecosystem, not a purpose-built security product — its presence in this subcategory reflects what hobbyists build on top of it (indoor mapping, patrol, and monitoring projects), not how Clearpath or Open Robotics market it.
clearpathrobotics.com/turtlebot-4 →
Image: Clearpath Robotics (official)
Specs
Weight
3.9 kg (Standard)3.3 kg for the Lite variant
Dimensions
351 × 339 × 341 mmLite: 192 × 339 × 341mm (shorter, no tower)
Compute
Raspberry Pi 4Bonboard SBC; community notes it can bottleneck heavier perception loads
Camera
OAK-D-Pro / OAK-D-LiteStandard vs. Lite variant, respectively
Software
ROS 2 Humble → JazzyJazzy Jalisco support added Oct. 2024
Base
iRobot Create 3differential drive, cliff and bump sensors, dock-and-charge
Lidar
RPLIDAR A1M8360°, ~12m range
Battery Life
~2.5–4 hrsvaries by variant and workload
Speed
0.31–0.46 m/sinherited from the Create 3 base
Variants
Standard & Litetower/sensor payload vs. no-tower, budget config
Subscription
Nonefully open ROS 2 platform; no cloud/SaaS tier tied to the hardware
Reference Price
RobotShop lists current reference pricing of $2,575 for the Standard configuration and $1,572 for Lite — up sharply from the 2022 launch MSRPs of $1,750 and $1,095, increases of roughly 47% and 44% respectively. Both variants are sold through Clearpath directly and through robotics distributors like RobotShop and Generation Robots; pricing should be treated as a reference point rather than a live quote, since component costs (particularly the OAK-D camera line) have shifted since launch.
Insights
Every official Clearpath and OSRF source describes TurtleBot4 as an open-source ROS 2 education and research reference platform for universities and developers — not a security product; the "camera patrol" framing found elsewhere traces to a single non-authoritative content-farm article, not manufacturer messaging (any DIY patrol use is a hobbyist adaptation, not an out-of-box capability). Community threads also note the onboard Raspberry Pi 4B can become a real bottleneck when running SLAM, the depth camera, and Nav2 navigation simultaneously, which is why many labs pair it with an external companion computer for heavier workloads.
Firmware & Community
turtlebot/turtlebot4
ROS 2 navigation, drivers, and simulation stack, fully open-sourced — software only. The hardware itself is a closed commercial build on the iRobot Create 3 base.
Verified against Clearpath Robotics' official TurtleBot4 product pages and datasheets, the OSRF/Open Robotics TurtleBot4 documentation and ROS 2 Jazzy release notes, RobotShop and Generation Robots pricing listings, Luxonis's OAK-D-Pro/Lite product specs, iRobot's Create 3 documentation, ROS Discourse community threads, and Clearpath's published University of Waterloo case study. Flagged as uncertain or unresolved: the precise organizational relationship between OSRF (nonprofit, still stewards ROS/TurtleBot) and OSRC (commercial arm acquired by Alphabet's Intrinsic in Dec. 2022) going forward, which no single source fully clarifies; and the "Security" framing itself, which this catalog could not verify against any official Clearpath or OSRF source and traces to a single non-authoritative article rather than manufacturer positioning.