As technology becomes faster, smarter, and more compact, it's important to look at and work for its potential social benefits. One such area of application is elderly and disabled assistance. This paper details the simulation and hardware of an indoor service robot based on the TurtleBot (developed by the robotics company Willow Garage). The design, simulation, and development for TurtleBot is done entirely on open source platforms, thus significantly reducing costs. The sensors, microcontrollers, microcomputer and other components are also readily available online at non-prohibitive costs. The TurtleBot repurposes Microsoft's Kinect (a motion sensing device to supplement their XBox console) to create a 3D map and apply a simultaneous localisation and mapping (SLAM) algorithm.
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