Re:What Comes After the Roomba?
by cbames89 on Thursday October 25, 2018 @06:29AM
(#18299834)
A lot of Robonaut's actuator technology ended up in Baxter. Now Rethink's dead, but it did start the whole cobots sector. In many respects the cobots from UR are closer to the model T then 60s era robotics. 60s era robotics is more like the tracked steam shovel.
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Re:What Comes After the Roomba?
by GlenTheMachine on Thursday October 25, 2018 @08:31AM
(#18300359)
>A lot of Robonaut's actuator technology ended up in Baxter.
Well, not exactly. Both Robonaut and Baxter used series-elastic actuators. But Robonaut didn't invent them. This is kind of like saying that a lot of the tech from the lunar rover ended up in Tesla's. Sure, they both used electric motors and batteries. But Tesla's existence is in no way dependent on the lunar rover.
Sure, my statement was based on rumors that I heard about Rethink taking a look at Robonaut with the covers off and the actuators looking eerily similar. But yes, Series elastic actuators weren't invented at NASA.