Name: Kilobot
Brand: K-Team
Price: 1320 USD
Availability: OutOfStock

Harvard Self-Organizing Systems Research Group / K-Team (USA / Switzerland) Kilobot (1)

$1,320 (10-pack)Last listed by K-Team at 1,100 CHF for a pack of ten robots (excluding taxes and shipping), about $1,320 converted, on its product page archived in October 2023. October 2026 check found K-Team's website down (returning errors since January 2025), and reseller Generation Robots no longer lists the 10-pack (it earlier showed €1,370 with long delivery times). The overhead controller board was sold separately. Year 2011 is when Harvard licensed the design to K-Team; the ICRA paper followed in 2012.

Out of stockVia SSH / web / bridgePalm-sizedSwarm of 1,000+Vibration-drivenOpen design

Weeks+Shipping: Unconfirmed. K-Team in Switzerland was the only licensed maker. Its website has been offline since early 2025 and the main European reseller has dropped the product, so current availability is unconfirmed. Labs have to contact K-Team directly or build their own from the open design.

Remote control: Code is compiled on a PC and broadcast to every robot at once through the overhead infrared controller using KiloGUI. K-Team's tools were Windows-oriented (WinAVR), while the open kilolib tool chain also builds on Mac and Linux (unconfirmed).

K-Team product page (archived 2023) ↗Wyss Institute ↗Kilobotics (software, labs) ↗Science paper (2014) ↗ICRA 2012 paper ↗Wikipedia ↗

Overview

A coin-sized swarm robot built so that a lab could run experiments on a thousand robots without handling each one. Charging, programming and start/stop all happen for the whole group at once. In 2014 a swarm of 1,024 Kilobots self-assembled into shapes such as a star and the letter K, published in Science. Parts cost under $15 per robot. Vibration motors make the motion imprecise and only work on smooth, flat surfaces, and buying a pack has become uncertain since K-Team's website went offline.

Specifications

Category	Wheeled rovers · Research mobile manipulators & platforms
Released	2011
Country	USA, Switzerland
Availability	Out of stock
Programmability	Open source (hardware + software)
Built-in autonomy	None / scripted · Moves only when controlled, or plays preset motions
LLM support	None · No LLM features. Programs are tiny C files flashed to the whole swarm at once over infrared.
MuJoCo simulation	None found · Nothing found.
NVIDIA Isaac simulation	None found · Nothing found.
Gazebo simulation	None found · Nothing found. Kilobot models exist for CoppeliaSim (V-REP, shipped by K-Team) and the ARGoS swarm simulator, plus the browser-based Kilombo simulator.
Best for	Professionals & labs
Vision sensors	No vision sensors
Actuators	Other
Audio	No audio
Compute type	Arduino / ESP32 / microcontroller
Remote control	Via SSH / web / bridge
Size	33 mm diameter, 34 mm tall including legs
Drive	Two vibration motors on a body standing on three rigid legs, giving slip-stick differential drive (255 power levels per motor)
Compute	ATmega328P (8-bit, 8 MHz) with 32 KB flash and 2 KB RAM
Vision	None
Lidar	None
Sensors	Infrared transmitter and receiver bounced off the table for messages up to 7 cm away and distance to neighbors, ambient light sensor, RGB LED
Runtime	About 2.5 hours of active use, about 3 months in sleep mode, about 3 hours to charge
Speed	About 1 cm/s forward and 45°/s turning (ICRA 2012 paper)
SDK	C with the open-source kilolib API, AVR toolchain, KiloGUI for flashing and start/stop over an overhead IR controller, online editor at kilobotics.com