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takyon [soylentnews.org] writes:

Rethink Robotics [rethinkrobotics.com], the firm that released a highly-publicized but only mildly successful general-purpose manufacturing/assembly robot called "Baxter" [wikipedia.org], is trying again with an upgraded version called "Sawyer". The robots are designed to be "trained" rather than programmed. Sawyer comes with a single robotic arm rather than Baxter's two. From the BBC [bbc.com]:

First announced in March, the robot weighs 19 kilograms (42 pounds) and can measure forces on its joints with great precision which allows it to "feel" the right place to put a part. It will sell for a base price of $29,000 (£19,000).

It has been tested by General Electric over the past month and will be deployed in its North Carolina factory - positioning parts into a light fixture. It will also be used by furniture firm Steelcase, working alongside a welding machine, picking and placing parts in its Michigan factory.

Sawyer was described by MIT Technology Review [technologyreview.com] earlier this year:

The family resemblance between Baxter and Sawyer is strong. Sawyer is also red, and has Baxter's eyes. It runs the same software. But improvements to the actuators that run its joints make Sawyer's arm stiffer, and thus more precise. Sawyer can also lift more weight than its big brother. And a new camera is better at differentiating between parts and can read barcodes, addressing another limitation of Baxter for many manufacturing tasks. Sawyer will be available later this year for $29,000, and will be able to perform "a much bigger set of tasks than Baxter was able to," says Rethink's chief marketing officer, Jim Lawton.

Baxter is good at grabbing objects from a conveyor belt, but can't perform many of the tasks that manufacturers are eager to automate. Sawyer is designed to perform so-called "machine tending" tasks, which generally require a human to stand next to a piece of machinery inserting and removing parts. One prominent example, from the electronics manufacturing industry, is called an in-circuit test: a worker inserts a newly produced circuit board into a machine, waits for the machine to run a brief test of the part's quality, and then takes the part out and moves it down the line.

In-circuit testing can be almost like placing a puzzle piece, and if the positioning of a circuit is just slightly off, the test won't work. Sawyer relies on an advanced force-sensing system to "feel his way" into the testing machine without damaging it or the part, and place it in the desired position, says Benoit.

Original Submission