Turtle Bot 4 performance and battery

[Lorenz108]

Robot Model

Turtlebot4 Standard

ROS distro

Jazzy

Networking Configuration

Simple Discovery

OS

Ubuntu 24.04

Built from source or installed?

Installed

Package version

n/a

Type of issue

Battery

Expected behaviour

I would expect that the TB4 is driving backwards without issues.

Actual behaviour

I have noticed a few things that I would like to clarify:
 

• When using the supplied remote controller, the Turtle Bot seems to move relatively slowly, particularly when turning.
• When driving in reverse, the Turtle Bot starts to wobble or rock back and forth. It then seems to get stuck and stops moving backwards properly.
   
  As I do not have any previous experience with the Turtle Bot 4, I am not sure whether this behaviour is normal for this model.
   
  Could you please let me know whether the described behaviour is to be expected, or whether it could indicate a problem with the battery, motors, or another component?
   
  I would greatly appreciate your assessment before I initiate another return or warranty claim with the German retailer.
   
  Thank you very much for your help.

Error messages

To Reproduce

1. detach TB4 from Docking Hun
2. connect the Remote Controller
3. start driving around

TB4-360p30.mov

Other notes

No response

[Lorenz108]

I noticed that the robot’s battery level dropped from 80% to 40% within approximately 50 minutes. During this period, the robot was active but remained stationary and did not move. Only onboard components and sensors, such as the cameras, LiDAR, and other systems, were operating.

Considering that the robot did not perform any driving or movement during this time, the 40% battery consumption within 50 minutes seems relatively high.

[smatarCPR]

Hello @Lorenz108
Thank you for reaching out on the Turtlebot 4 Github page.

In terms of your questions I have the following details to share:

• When using the supplied remote controller, the Turtle Bot seems to move relatively slowly, particularly when turning. When driving using the controller, which shoulder button are you using to enable the drive? By default, L1 will drive the robot at ‘normal' speeds, and R1 will drive the robot at ‘turbo' speeds.
• When driving in reverse, the Turtle Bot starts to wobble or rock back and forth. It then seems to get stuck and stops moving backwards properly. This is expected behaviour, by default, as a safety feature, the Create 3 base limits the amount of distance the unit can drive backwards before stopping. These safety features can be overridden by modifying the Application Configuration file found in the Create3 webserver - https://iroboteducation.github.io/create3_docs/webserver/application/
• In terms of you concerns with the battery life, even when the Turtlebot 4 is sitting idling it can be consuming power due to background packages running. These could include the camera, lidar, and diagnostics packages. The camera package is known to be resource intensive as it involves graphics processing. For reference our stated battery life time for the Turtlebot 4 is between 2h 30m - 4h depending on load.

Let me know if you have any follow up questions or if I can help with anything else.
Best Regards,
Saif

[Lorenz108]

Hi Saif,

Thank you very much for the detailed explanations, they were very helpful!

Regarding point 1: I have indeed been using L1 the whole time. With R1, the robot drives noticeably faster. Thanks for pointing that out, that information was missing for me until now.

Regarding point 2: Thanks for clarifying, this helps me understand that it’s not a malfunction but an intentional safety feature. I still don’t fully understand the reasoning behind it, but it’s good to know that I can override the setting if needed.

Regarding point 3: Thank you for the information on the typical battery runtime. I’ll keep monitoring it going forward. The background to my concern is that this is already the second unit I’ve received, the first one had to be returned to the retailer because the battery was completely defective. So I was worried that this battery might already be degraded and not delivering full performance anymore.

Best regards
Lorenz