Could This Robot Save Your Job?
The man who invented Roomba, the robotic vacuum, is back — this time, with Baxter. Rodney Brooks, roboticist and entrepreneur, brought Baxter, his latest robot, to the TED conference in Long Beach, Calif., last week.
Brooks’ latest company, Rethink Robotics, describes Baxter as a collaborative manufacturing robot. Brooks showed how Baxter, which costs $22,000 per model, can work alongside humans — not replace them — to do simple, repetitive tasks.
Brooks is the Panasonic Professor of Robotics (emeritus) at MIT, where he also used to run the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. His idea is that Baxter can help, for example, aging factory workers do their jobs more efficiently. He told the TED audience that after this generation ages out of factory work, they tell him, they don’t want their children to carry on their work.
Baxter has eyes for feedback. Though its eyes don’t see you as a person, they serve as a signal as to what it’ll do next.
Normally robots need to be programmed, but this one learns by physical training. Move Baxter’s arm and it learns that’s how it should move its arm. In just a few minutes, the robot can be taught, for example, to take something out of a box and place it on a conveyor belt, then, after it’s assembled, put it back in a box.
More: Could This Robot Save Your Job? : All Tech Considered : NPR