Rethink Robotics, a new robotics company, specialises in creating manufacturing robots for industries. They have innovated a new manufacturing robot named Baxter. It is designed to perform a variety of manufacturing tasks and learns to adapt to various working environments on its own.
Capabilities and Functions
Baxter can handle materials, place or move parts from fixed surfaces and conveyors, check the weight and shape of various parts, pack and unpack, assemble light parts, and perform finishing operations. Baxter displays its face on its small screen.
It has 360° sonar and five built-in cameras to detect humans and machine parts. The controls on the arm help in interfacing with the robot. As you can see in the video, the robot visually identifies the object, picks it up with great accuracy, and places it on the conveyor.
Baxter’s arm has seven degrees of freedom with an arm speed of 1 m/sec. Each arm can lift a 5 lb payload. It can perform 8 to 12 pick-and-place operations per minute.
Specifications and Training
It comes with all the required hardware and software and can be trained easily. It can be trained to do different tasks without the use of new software or hardware. Baxter can be taught via a graphical user interface and by manually moving the robot arms to perform the right task.
Baxter’s performance and operations can be increased with software updates by Rethink Robotics. A Software Development Kit will be provided by Rethink Robotics in 2013, allowing customers to develop applications for additional tasks.
Baxter’s active and passive safety systems allow it to work safely alongside humans in an industrial environment. Baxter is a low-priced robot that is ready to take on your job.
Credits: Rethink Robotics
