Baxter (robot)
Baxter is an industrial robot built by Rethink Robotics, a start-up company founded by Rodney Brooks. It was introduced in September 2012.
Baxter is different than other industrial robots by being less precise and rapid, but at the same time more adaptive and safe.[citation needed] Instead of a motor driving directly an arm, as usually done for industrial robots, the motor drives a spring, and the spring drives the arm. This has the advantage that the arm can feel if it hits something, and can stop.
Baxter is designed to cost just $22,000, which is about an order of magnitude cheaper than usual industrial robots. It is also meant to be programmed by simply moving its arms, similar to standard industrial robotics' "lead by the nose" technique. (
According to Rodney Brooks, Baxter is not a threat to human jobs, because there are still tasks that people can do better, such as quality assurance or small assembly where things such as sensing tension are important; the robot is designed to do repetitive tasks, the people do the tasks they are good at, and together, the factory excels.[1]
Baxter runs on the open-source Robot Operating System. It is intended to be sold to small and medium-size companies.
References
- Baxter Robot Heads to Work September 18, 2012 Wall Street Journal