Georgia Tech GRITS Lab GRITSbot / GRITSbot X (Robotarium) specs

Georgia Tech GRITS Lab / Robotarium (USA) GRITSbot / GRITSbot X (Robotarium) (1)

Not for saleNever sold. The Robotarium at Georgia Tech lets anyone run code on its robots remotely, free of charge for research and education (Robotarium presentation, 2021; October 2026 check of its GitHub shows the simulators still maintained). GRITSbot X hardware design files are on GitHub. Year 2015 is the first GRITSbot paper (ICRA 2015).

Not for sale (research)Via SSH / web / bridgePalm-sizedFree remote labSwarmPython / MATLAB

Not for saleShipping: Not for sale. Not sold. The robots can be used remotely for free through the Robotarium website, and the GRITSbot X and GTernal design files are open on GitHub for labs that want to build their own.

Remote control: Code is written and tested on a Mac or PC with the Robotarium Python or MATLAB simulator, then submitted through the Robotarium website to run on up to about 25 real robots; results come back as video and data files. There is no direct live control.

Robotarium ↗Python simulator ↗GRITSbot X hardware ↗GTernal (newer robot) ↗Robotarium paper (ICRA 2017) ↗Robotarium presentation (2021) ↗

Overview

Small differential-drive robots built for the Robotarium at Georgia Tech, a swarm-robotics lab that has been open to the public over the internet since 2017. Anyone can register, test a multi-robot program in the free simulator and queue it to run on real robots, which charge themselves wirelessly between runs. By 2021 more than 485 users on every continent except Antarctica had run over 1,100 experiments. The robots themselves cannot be bought, and the newer GTernal robot (Raspberry Pi based) now appears in Robotarium papers.

Specifications

Category	Wheeled rovers · Research mobile manipulators & platforms
Released	2015
Country	USA
Availability	Not for sale (research)
Programmability	Full SDK
Built-in autonomy	None / scripted · Moves only when controlled, or plays preset motions
LLM support	Possible via SDK · No LLM features. Experiments are Python or MATLAB scripts submitted to the Robotarium, which could in principle embed any planner.
Best for	Professionals & labs
Vision sensors	No vision sensors
Actuators	Stepper motors
Audio	No audio
Compute type	Arduino / ESP32 / microcontroller, Raspberry Pi
Remote control	Via SSH / web / bridge
Size	Original GRITSbot about 3 cm across and 60 g (unconfirmed); GRITSbot X and the newer GTernal are about 11 cm across
Drive	Two wheels, differential drive (stepper motors on the original GRITSbot)
Compute	ESP8266 Wi-Fi chip (160 MHz) plus an ATmega168 motor board on the original GRITSbot, Raspberry Pi plus a Teensy 4.0 on the newer GTernal
Vision	None on board (an overhead Vicon motion-capture system tracks every robot)
Lidar	None
Sensors	GRITSbot X has 7 infrared distance sensors, high-resolution wheel encoders and Wi-Fi; the original had 6 IR sensors and optional IMU
Runtime	Up to about 40 minutes on a 400 mAh LiPo (original GRITSbot); robots recharge wirelessly between experiments
Speed	Up to about 25 cm/s (original GRITSbot, unconfirmed); 0.2 m/s cap in the Robotarium simulator; GTernal about 26 cm/s
SDK	Open-source Robotarium Python simulator (MIT, Python 3.10+) and MATLAB simulator with barrier-certificate collision avoidance; scripts are uploaded through the Robotarium website and the run video and data are returned