At the end of January, Baxter left OSRF for a stint in Corvallis, Oregon where he will be used in a project that is investigating the use of teleoperated robots in the treatment of highly contagious diseases such as Ebola. He will be joining the Personal Robotics Group, part of Oregon State University’s growing Robotics Program, as part of their NSF-funded work to bring robots to the front lines of the current Ebola outbreak.
Fetch Robotics has just announced $3 million funding from Shasta Ventures and O’Reilly AlphaTech Ventures , which will be used to bring their new mobile manipulator robots to market in Q2 2015.
UPDATED Jan 8: In an unannounced funding discovered by Boston Globe reporter Scott Kirsner, Rethink Robotics sold equity and received $26.6 million a few days before Christmas .
Although Rethink Robotics is downsizing, their action is not indicative of the robotics industry, which is booming and hiring.
The Boston Globe reported that Rethink Robotics, maker of the $22,000 Baxter 2-armed robot, has cut 21 jobs from their staff of approximately 90.
UPDATED: October 6, 2013
Small and medium shops and factories (SMEs) are an untapped marketplace for robotics but direly in need of automation to remain competitive in this global economy. Two new start up companies: Rethink Robotics and Universal Robots have entered that marketplace. Both companies have U.S. sales in the hundreds of units; Universal has a head start internationally and has sold about 3,000 to-date, but Rethink is way ahead in the US. Both have similar 60-100/mo manufacturing run rates – so the future looks bright for selling flexible, lightweight, low-cost robots that are easily programmed, safe for humans to work alongside, don’t require a caged or roped off area, and perform at affordable metrics.
Much has been said about the need to augment the skills and increase the productivity of small factory workers by using robotic assistants called co-robots. Europe funded an SME (Small and Medium-sized Enterprise) public-private consortium to determine the needs and develop robotic solutions for those needs. In America, venture and privately-funded Rethink Robotics whose founder and CTO is ex-MIT Professor and iRobot co-founder Rodney Brooks has been doing the same thing: developing an adaptive manufacturing robot that can work safely alongside human workers. Brooks is devoted to — and an eloquent spokesman for — his mission of creating smarter, more adaptable, low-cost robotic solutions that can help manufacturers improve efficiency, increase productivity and reduce their need for offshoring.
Rethink Robotics has announced the availability of a bundle, called the Baxter Research Robot, which includes their Baxter robot and a Software Development Kit, for US$22,000.
Robots for manufacturing. Generating a new family of robots that have a
fluent interaction with humans. It will be easily programmable. Some would
argue that Baxter provides this functionality. Unfortunately Baxter is
slow, there is no abstraction in programming and it does not have the
required accuracy. There is plenty of room to make this a real success. We
in the field of robotics need more such successes.
The most pressing problem to consider is the design of more robust, flexible, and
affordable grippers for robots. This is a major limitation for more widespread
use of robots in many different applications. Parallel pneumatic grippers are
affordable, but the more dextrous systems are much too expensive.
Speaking at CMU Robotics Institute as part of their RI Seminar Series, Rodney Brooks, Founder, Chairman, and CTO of Rethink Robotics (originally Heartland Robotics), talked about their new Baxter robot, what drove its design, and the circumstances surrounding the formation of the company. His talk is followed by about fifteen minutes of Q&A.
In today’s episode we speak with Rodney Brooks at the offices of Rethink Robotics about their first product Baxter, his ambition to revolutionize manufacturing and latest tips for young entrepreneurs.
Yesterday was the launch of Rethink Robotics’ Baxter shop assistant robot.
Many reporters, including myself, saw Baxter at Rethink’s headquarters in Boston in the past two months but were embargoed from writing about it until today, the launch date.
May 20, 2020
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