Name: Khepera (I – IV)
Brand: K-Team
Price: 3260 USD
Availability: OutOfStock

K-Team (Switzerland) Khepera (I – IV) (1)

K-Team (Switzerland) Khepera (I – IV) (2)

K-Team (Switzerland) Khepera (I – IV) (3)

$3,260Last listed by K-Team at 2,700 CHF for the Khepera IV (excluding taxes and shipping), about $3,260 converted, on its product page archived in January 2024. October 2026 check found K-Team's website down (returning errors since January 2025) and the Generation Robots listing (€3,240) removed. Year 1991 is the first EPFL prototype; Khepera II came in 1998, Khepera III in 2005 and Khepera IV in 2014.

Out of stockVia SSH / web / bridgeLinux onboardResearch classicSince 1991

Weeks+Shipping: Unconfirmed. K-Team in Switzerland sold it directly and through distributors. Its website has been offline since early 2025 and the main European reseller has dropped the Khepera IV, so current availability is unconfirmed. Used units sometimes come from university labs.

Remote control: Programs are cross-compiled on a Linux PC (K-Team documents a VirtualBox setup for Windows) and run on the robot over SSH via Wi-Fi or USB. A Mac would need a Linux VM for the tool chain (unconfirmed).

K-Team Khepera IV (archived 2024) ↗Wikipedia ↗EPFL DISAL Khepera IV toolbox ↗ROS 2 / Gazebo package (UNED) ↗

Overview

The robot that defined small-scale mobile robotics research in the 1990s. The original 5.5 cm Khepera, built at EPFL's Microcomputing Lab and sold by spin-off K-Team, was used widely in evolutionary robotics and neural-network experiments. Each generation grew, and the 14 cm Khepera IV is hand-sized rather than palm-sized, with embedded Linux, a camera and a 7-hour battery. Its catch is a price above $3,000 and uncertain supply since K-Team's website went offline.

Specifications

Category	Wheeled rovers · Research mobile manipulators & platforms
Released	1991
Country	Switzerland
Availability	Out of stock
Programmability	Full SDK
Built-in autonomy	Reactive · Responds to its surroundings without a map, such as avoiding obstacles or following a person
LLM support	Possible via SDK · No LLM features. It runs embedded Linux with C/C++ and Python 2.7, so an LLM could only be added through custom networked code.
MuJoCo simulation	None found · Nothing found.
NVIDIA Isaac simulation	None found · Nothing found.
Gazebo simulation	Community model · UNED Robotic Park Lab's ROS 2 package includes a Gazebo Classic 11 simulation of the Khepera IV. Webots has an official Khepera IV model, which is not counted here. Robotic-Park-Lab/uned_kheperaIV_ros_pkg ↗
Best for	Professionals & labs
Vision sensors	Camera, Sonar / ultrasonic
Actuators	DC / gear motors
Audio	Speaker, Microphone
Compute type	Other ARM chip, Arduino / ESP32 / microcontroller
Remote control	Via SSH / web / bridge
Size	Original Khepera about 5.5 cm across; Khepera IV 140 mm diameter, 58 mm tall, 540 g
Drive	Two DC motors with encoders and gearboxes, differential drive (Khepera IV)
Compute	Khepera IV runs embedded Linux on an 800 MHz ARM Cortex-A8 (Gumstix Overo) with 256 MB RAM, plus a microcontroller for peripherals
Vision	Color camera, 752×480 at 30 fps (Khepera IV)
Lidar	None
Sensors	8 infrared proximity/ambient light sensors, 4 infrared ground sensors, 5 ultrasonic sensors (25 cm to 2 m), 3-axis accelerometer and gyroscope, microphone, speaker, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth (Khepera IV)
Runtime	About 7 hours (7.4 V 3,400 mAh LiPo, Khepera IV)
Speed	Up to 1 m/s open loop, 0.8 m/s with the default speed controller (Khepera IV)
SDK	GNU C/C++ cross compiler with the libkhepera library, Python 2.7 on board, KB-250 extension bus for add-on turrets, Webots model, community ROS 2 packages