NEW YORK—Meet Baxter, a six-foot-tall, 300-pound industrial robot with a tablet for a face. If you've ever seen or read a sci-fi story where factory workers are replaced by robots, Baxter is that robot. It can pack things in boxes. It can inspect, sort, and align parts. Baxter can even do "light" assembly. For $25,000—about the average annual cost of a US production worker's salary—customers can drop Baxter into a repetitive assembly line job and have it work alongside its human counterparts. This past week, when Ars attend ATX East (that's "Automated Technology eXpo") in New York City, Baxter was on display. We taught it to stack cups.
Baxter has two arms with five joints each, allowing it to move items from one location to another. The torso contains the computer and a few vacuum connections for the optional suction cup hands. The head is a (non-touch) tablet used to work Baxter's UI, show what Baxter is currently paying attention to, and communicate status.
(video link)This robot doesn't really have "legs" and can't move on its own—it's just a torso on a stick. The torso can be bolted to a table or placed on a stationary pedestal. There is also an optional unpowered, wheeled base, but mostly Baxter is content to sit at its post in the factory.
Read 17 remaining paragraphs | Comments
