One of the reasons Baxter is so great is because he is a personal and safe kind of industrial robot. He is designed to literally work alongside his human coworkers. He has eyes that look in the direction where he is going to move to give visual queues to bystanders. He is able to feel obstructions in his path so that he doesn't plow anyone down with his arms. But most importantly, Baxter is able to be trained by the average person. In order to teach Baxter a task all anyone has to do is guide his arms in the general direction that they need to move and show him what he is grabbing. From there, Baxter perfects the motion and makes it smooth and efficient.
While that is all great, Baxter has one more benefit, cost. Baxter only costs $25,000. This is a fraction of a standard industrial robot arm without programming. Baxter literally costs less than the wages of a worker that would do the same task. This is a first. Robots are normally very expensive because their mechanics are very expensive so only large corporation could afford them because of their long-term efficiency. The folks at Rethink Robotics have made Baxter affordable to the average, small manufacturer.
And one last thing. While Baxter is cheaper than the average line worker he is not meant to replace them. He is meant to elevate them to his supervisor. So now the person doesn't have to do the repetitive monotonous work but instead makes sure that Baxter does it well.
Baxter was designed with the end user and the industry in mind. And his contribution will no doubt be a significant one.
You can see Baxter in action in the video below
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