The evolution of robotics has been quite remarkable. Take for instance the soft robotics that resemble an octopus and moves like one as well, the sweating robot that cools its system by releasing water vapor through its “skin.” Now meet Baxter, a revolutionary robot in a class of its own. Baxter’s abilities are quite advanced and cannot be compared to any of his peers in this time and age. Many scientists hope that Baxter will be the stepping stone for the robot evolution.

Baxter’s Background

Robots have been around for a long time, but their progress has been quite slow. But even so, the ones around are quite useful. There is a limit to how long a healthy human being can work. But a robot can work longer hours with little or no supervision and minimal maintenance. For this reason, scientists are always looking for ways to advance robotics.

The name Rodney Brooks is synonymous with robots from way back in the 80’s. Brooks formed iRobots, with two of his students, which made robots for household chores and edged out its competitors due to better pricing. In the 90’s, Roomba came into being, which was basically an improvement of iRobots, with better features and could complete more tasks.  Fast- forward to today, and enter Baxter the robot, the first and only of its kind.

How Baxter the robot works

iRobots and Roomba pale in comparison to Baxter the robot. Cutting edge technology has made Baxter a force to reckon with in robotics, which is the study and building of robots. Unlike his predecessors whose tasks were mainly household chores, Baxter has industrial capabilities. And can work in manufacturing, production lines, factories, offices, industries, and many other tasks and environments. This owes in large part to the way he has been built. They can achieve these maneuvers using their human like arms.

Features

In addition to his precision and speed, Baxter the robot can also adapt to new surroundings quickly, it can work alongside humans, which in the past was a tremendous challenge injury risk to the humans and damage to the robots. And that is just the tip of the iceberg.  Baxter’s ability to be trained to perform tasks even by non-technical staff, extra functional arms to perform tasks with ease, sensors in various parts to adapt to different terrain and changes in geography and contact with people and objects. And that’s not all; Baxter’s joints are less rigid, his hands have finger-like features that can grab an object with ease, eyes that move in the direction of his arms, a pedestal to make Baxter’s mobility a reality as robots rarely have legs.

But what Makes Baxter so unique

All this is in addition to 5 inbuilt cameras and a 360-degree sonar sensor that makes Baxter’s sensitivity on point.  But that alone does not separate Baxter to other robots. However, its ability to pass intuitive messages and show emotions has changed the whole dynamics of robotics. Yes! Baxter is a humanoid robot.  Baxter’s eyes can open and close, are cartoony and can mimic confusion, concentration, surprise, sadness, and even move from side to side.