Baxter

A two-armed helper for the production line

In September 2012 the robotics company Rethink Robotics unveiled Baxter, a robot with two arms designed to work safely alongside people on factory production lines.^[1] IEEE Spectrum described it as a dual-armed robot factory helper built to take over simple tasks for humans.^[2]

Industrial robots are usually strong, fast machines, and the standard way to keep people out of their reach is a cage or a fence. That arrangement suits a line that repeats the same motion for years, but it also means the robot has to be worth a dedicated installation. Baxter was presented as an answer to a different kind of job: small, varied tasks on a line where people are already working.

Sensing instead of fencing

Rethink Robotics said Baxter used sensors and software to see and understand its environment, and the company said that let it work next to people without the cages used to separate conventional industrial robots.^[1] Sensors gather information about what is around the machine; software turns that information into a picture of the space the robot has to move in. IEEE Spectrum reported that the robot was safe to work around.^[2]

Teaching by the hand

To set a task, a worker could take hold of Baxter's arms and guide them through the motion they wanted, then press a button to record the pattern.^[1] Instead of describing a movement in code, the person demonstrates it, and the machine keeps a record of the motion. IEEE Spectrum reported that the robot could be programmed with no training.^[2] The BBC reported that when Baxter did not understand a task, it responded with a confused expression.^[1]

Price and first shipments

Baxter was priced at $22,000 and was to go on sale in October 2012.^[1] PCMag reported that the list price began at $22,000, with an electric parallel gripper or a vacuum cup gripper costing $1,000 more, and a mobile pedestal $1,500 more.^[3] The gripper is the part at the end of the arm that holds the work; the pedestal is the stand the robot is mounted on, and a wheeled one lets the whole machine be moved between jobs. PCMag also reported that Rethink Robotics expected the first unit shipments of Baxter to begin in October 2012.^[3]

What the design argued

Read together, the features Baxter was announced with describe a robot aimed at different work from a conventional industrial arm. A cage and a programmer are both fixed costs, and they pay off when a machine repeats one motion for a long time. Guiding an arm by hand and recording the motion is a quick way to set up a task, and a machine that is safe to stand next to can be stopped, corrected and restarted by the person working beside it.^[1][2] Two claims were put forward at once: safe without a barrier, and usable without a specialist to program it.