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The future is here and it is being ushered in by Rethink Robotics.
The Massachusetts-based company on Tuesday introduced Baxter, your potential new co-worker or possibly just the perfect mechanical somebody to bring you breakfast in bed.
Baxter is the world's first humanoid robot capable of applying common sense behavior to manufacturing environments, according to Rethink, which promises that the machine is safe enough to work shoulder-to-shoulder with people.
"Robotics have been successful in designing robots capable of super-human speed and precision" but it's been difficult to build one that's able to inherently understand and adapt to their environment in human-like fashion, Rethink Robotics CTO Rodney Brooks said in a statement.
"We believed that if we could cross that chasm with the manufacturing environment specifically in mind, we could offer new hope to the millions of American manufacturers who are looking for innovative ways to compete in our global economy," Brooks said.
Rethink's robot sports six key features to that end, including software programming that is advertised as allowing Baxter to be taught just like any person, and the broad task flexibility to move to varied tasks over the course of a day, week, or month, without extensive retraining. Additionally, the machine comes ready-to-use off of the factory floor in less than an hour, the company said.
"Our guiding vision was to create a robot that would break the mold in two distinct ways," Rethink CEO Scott Eckert said. Aside from learning and functioning in a more human-like way, Eckert said Rethink wanted to create a hardware and software platform that could continually grow through new applications.
Baxter is being touted as an affordable option for midsize and small companies which have never been able to afford robots. His list price begins at $22,000, plus an additional $1,000 for an electric parallel gripper or vacuum cup gripper, and $1,500 for a mobile pedestal to allow Baxter to move around a work space. For one of everything, the robot's total price tag reaches $25,500.
