Realationships
Published

Rethink Ramps Up Robotics Revolution With More Funding

GE Ventures and Goldman Sachs bet big on Baxter, the collaborative robot designed to reshape automation’s role in manufacturing and beyond.

Share

When temperatures dipped into negative territory last week, some pipes in Rethink Robotics’ red-brick South Boston headquarters—a repurposed industrial space from the 1890s—burst, dousing desks but not dampening spirits for the innovative startup that is “rethinking” automation.

 

Rethink’s chief marketing officer, Jim Lawton, told Plastics Technology that his company’s plumbing issues had no impact on robots currently in production and did little to dismay the robot manufacturer in light of the news it announced on the same day: an additional $26.6 million in Series D financing coming from GE Ventures and Goldman Sachs.

 

Since its launch in 2008, Rethink has generated more than $100 million in funding, with this latest round to support continued innovation and global growth. To date, apart from robots installed at research institutions, the “several hundred” Baxter’s that are up and running in manufacturing are solely in the U.S., according to Lawton.

 

Not for long, however, as interest in the collaborative robots comes in from all over, particularly the Far East. “There’s a tremendous market for robots in Asia,” Lawton said. “China hasn’t leveraged automation nearly as much as other parts of the world.”

Learning From the Field
Following the 2008 founding, Rethink actually launched its Baxter line of collaborative robots in the fall of 2012, with its first orders shipped in the first quarter of 2013. Since those Baxter’s were deployed, Rethink has been rethinking its product, optimizing its collaborative robot.

 

“Now we have a couple of years of really good understanding,” Lawton said. “Here’s where [the robots] work, here’s where they don’t. What we’ve done since we started shipping the robot is  build up a really good understanding of where you can deploy—here’s where it’s more challenging; here’s where it makes sense.”

 

Since those first Baxter’s were installed at the start of 2013, Lawton said Rethink has made changes, but primarily on the software side. On the hardware side, the company intentionally created a design that could “sustain us for a long time,” according to Lawton.

 

Imprecise Precision
Lawton noted that historically, automation has been about building out the most precise hardware and packaging it with a programmable software platform. Rethink purposely avoided building Baxter with the most exacting motors and gears in the world, and not just because they’re extraordinarily expensive.

 

Instead it designed Baxter with what is known as “compliant motion control” similar to how human arms work, allowing the robot to feel its way around a job.

 

All Baxter’s joints have springs in them, giving them certain amount of give. Where other robots utilize sensors and vision systems to try to achieve exact movements through space, adding cost and the potential for mishaps if elements become misaligned, Baxter operates via feel. Lawton says this allows the robot to work under imprecise pick and imprecise place scenarios, granting it greater flexibility for future jobs.

 

Lawton recalls visiting with a plastics customer in the Chicago area recently who pointed out his shop’s automation graveyard—a deserted corner of the plant where ultra precise systems that were too inflexible to take on new jobs had been mothballed ever since their molding run was up.

 

For Baxter, it’s a question of wheeling the robot to another job, and showing it what to do, according to Lawton. Improvements to Baxter’s programming algorithm have boosted speed and precision by “path planning” or figuring out the most efficient way for the robot to move through space.

 

Within plastics, the robots are tending machines, packing cartons, and undertaking general material handling tasks, including things like loading/unloading inserts. These are instances where a human could do the work, but it’s often tedious, making it prone to errors that generate scrap.

 

Putting a Face With a Robot
Where Baxter also differs is in how it interacts with the humans it’s designed to work alongside. The robot has a “face” that follows people that enter its work space and, as a human would, hints at its next move.

 

“If you were here and I took a drink, you would see my eyes glance at the drink before I would move,” Lawton explained. “You don’t think about that, but I’m sending you a signal, and you know what I’m going to do; you’re not surprised. Comfort comes from trusting that you have a general sense of where the robot is going to move.”

 

In addition to a face, Baxter is fixtured with human-like arms, giving people around it a clear understanding of its reach and range of movements, for instance. “I’m not dissing six-axis robots, they’re very good at what they do, but they really have to operate with a cage. They can be coiled like a snake—I have no idea how far it can reach, and how fast it can get there.”

 

If Baxter crowded you, however, you could get his attention, according to Lawton. “If I grab its arm it will look at me,” he explained. “Baxter has a face; he has anticipatory artificial intelligence; he will give an indication of what he’s likely to do before he does it. This helps humans get comfortable with a robot.”

Comfortable enough, that Lawton and Rethink believe collaborative robots can become a fixture in many settings, not just a molding cell.

 

“Last year, a lot of automation suppliers rebranded themselves as making collaborative robots,” Lawton said, adding that he thinks that’s a positive. “The concept has gone from intellectual curiosity to, ‘Wow these are real.’ I firmly believe you will see collaborative robots in every single manufacturing facility, every home.”

 

mold, mould track, digital tracking, molding
Shuttle Mold System
Guill - World Leader in Extrusion Tooling
Konica Minolta CM-36dG
New 2024 Twin Screw Report
Insert molding automation
structural foam molding chemical foaming agents
Gardner Business Media, Inc.
Uway LLC
Blending Revolution
Dri-Air
AM Workshop

Related Content

industry 4.0

An Automation 'First' for Non-Servo-Eject Trim Presses

Compact, flexible and configurable robotic system is said to be the first to enable thermoformers to fully automate product handling after a non-servo trim press.

Read More
Blow Molding

New Name, Products, Technology— But Same Service Philosophy

Schoeneck Containers is now Radius Packaging, but customer needs are still the focal center of this blow molder’s business. Those customers will benefit from the company’s push toward automation, sustainability, and new products in injection molding and stretch-blown PET.

Read More
Extrusion

50 Years...600 Issues...and Still Counting

Matt Naitove marks his first half-century in plastics reporting, with a few of his favorite headlines.

Read More
Automation

Ensuring Repeatability: The Key to Effective Injection Molding Automation

One of automation’s key promises is repeatability: the same movement to the same location, time and time again. But to achieve that, all elements involved — robot, machine, EOAT, mold — must be in and stay in alignment.

Read More

Read Next

Injection Molding

Processor Turns to AI to Help Keep Machines Humming

At captive processor McConkey, a new generation of artificial intelligence models, highlighted by ChatGPT, is helping it wade through the shortage of skilled labor and keep its production lines churning out good parts.

Read More
Extrusion

Troubleshooting Screw and Barrel Wear in Extrusion

Extruder screws and barrels will wear over time. If you are seeing a  reduction in specific rate and higher discharge temperatures, wear is the likely culprit.   

Read More
best practices

People 4.0 – How to Get Buy-In from Your Staff for Industry 4.0 Systems

Implementing a production monitoring system as the foundation of a ‘smart factory’ is about integrating people with new technology as much as it is about integrating machines and computers. Here are tips from a company that has gone through the process.

Read More
Konica Minolta Spectrophotometer CM-36dG