Rethink Robotics has announced a single-arm, lightweight robot for precise automation tasks.
The robot, named Sawyer, features the same “face” on its interface as the company’s Baxter robot, and expands the company’s collaborative robot range.
The company also claims it will increase the ability of businesses investing in robots to expand the range of automation in factories.
According to a statement from Rethink, together, Baxter and the new robot, “can address many of the estimated 90 percent of manufacturing tasks that cannot be feasibly automated with traditional solutions today.”
CEO Scott Eckert said, "We have taken that relationship to the next level, with a high performance robot that opens the door for many new applications that have never been good candidates for automation."
The Sawyer robot weighs 19 kilograms, has a payload of 4 kilograms, a 1 metre reach, and seven degrees of freedom. It runs on the same Intera software platform as Baxter.
Time reports that development on the Sawyer began in late 2013.
Sawyer’s base price is $US 29,000, and will be released in a limited way to North American, European, Chinese and Japanese customers in the US summer 2015, followed by a general release “targeted for later in the year”.
Sage Automation announced last month that it has been appointed the authorised Australian integrator of Rethink’s Baxter.
To read a Manufacturers’ Monthly interview with Rethink’s CMO Jim Lawton from earlier this year, click here.
Sawyer video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4mULTknb2I
Image: Rethink Robotics