Robots: Changing the world
Baku, December 30 (AZERTAC). The role of robotics innovation and triumph is changing our real world in the era of the advanced technology and science. Robots appear to be helping human beings with hard and complex tasks in such fields as production, medicine, environment, security, outer space discovery, or military. Nowadays, Japan, which is known as the nation of powerful technology and the leading maker of robots, also introduces to the worldwide market robots that are supposed to replace people in terms of daily tasks. Although, there exist lots of disputes around the down sides of robots like destroying the world or leading to the outbreak of modern war, people still believe the important part of robots in our life today.
One robot methodically moves widget after widget onto a conveyor belt, the animated face on its LCD screen displaying an expression of quiet concentration. The task is mundane, but the robot is not: This is Baxter, the culmination of nearly five years of secretive development, based on the vision of Rodney Brooks, possibly the world’s most celebrated roboticist. Now founder, chairman, and CTO of Rethink Robotics, the company that built Baxter, Brooks has his sights set characteristically high: to unleash a revolution in manufacturing with a friendly faced factory robot.
With US $62 million in funding from top-tier investors such as Bezos Expeditions and Charles River Ventures, Rethink Robotics has been the subject of a great deal of interest and speculation since its founding in 2008. Like others who track robotics, we’d heard the rumors: Rethink was focusing on manufacturing; its robots would be so inexpensive every factory would be able to afford one; the robots would help make workers more efficient and American factories competitive again. But nobody knew exactly what the company was up to—or if they did, they weren’t talking. Rethink’s robot was one of the best-kept secrets in robotics, but that secret is about to be revealed with the exclusive demonstration we’re getting today in preparation for Baxter’s first shipments this month.
Baxter is designed to be inherently safe. With their fast, powerful motors and hefty limbs, industrial robots are typically kept fenced off from people. Baxter’s limited speed and lower weight—about 75 kilograms (165 pounds), or as much as an average adult man—mean that it can operate right alongside human workers. Brooks is so confident in this feature that he often puts his own body on the line: “I’ll just walk in and have this thing bash into my head, and it’s fine.”
There are two other major barriers to the adoption of industrial robots that Rethink wants to overcome: ease of use and cost. As for the first, Baxter doesn’t rely on custom programming to perform new tasks. Once it’s wheeled into place and plugged into an ordinary power outlet, a person with no robotics experience can program a new task simply by moving Baxter’s arms around and following prompts on its user-friendly interface (which doubles as the robot’s face). And while a traditional two-armed robot, including sensors and programming, will typically set you back hundreds of thousands of dollars, Baxter costs just $22 000. To achieve that, Rethink designed the robot from scratch. Underneath Baxter’s plastic exterior lie thousands of ingeniously engineered parts and materials that enable the robot to do what it does for the cost of a midsize car.
All these features make Baxter a potentially disruptive force in an industry ripe for disruption. Today, large suppliers and their large customers dominate industrial robotics. But almost any manufacturer can afford a Baxter (or two). In the United States alone, there are roughly 300 000 small and medium-size manufacturers, Brooks points out. So it’s not inconceivable that Rethink could make humanoid robots a normal part of the manufacturing process for businesses of all sizes. And by improving the efficiency of human employees, it could make making things in the industrialized world just as cost effective as making them in the developing world.
Building robots for these small and medium-size companies “is a fantastic opportunity,” says Henrik I. Christensen, a professor of robotics at the Georgia Institute of Technology, in Atlanta, who’s an expert in industrial automation. (He has no ties to Rethink.) There are many tasks, he says, that don’t require the speed and precision of today’s industrial robots, and these tasks are begging to be automated.
But Rethink’s robot invasion faces many challenges. The biggest by far will be selling the robot. For many folks, robots still evoke mental images of Robby the Robot, or worse, the Terminator. Rethink has to convince business owners that Baxter is not a gimmick, that it really can boost productivity. Brooks isn’t worried. He acknowledges that, in the beginning, Baxter will perform only a limited number of tasks. But as Rethink continues to upgrade the robot—especially its software—Baxter’s full potential will become evident. And then, Brooks predicts, his new robot will “sell like hotcakes.”
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