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| Industry | Robotics |
|---|---|
| Founded | Cambridge, Massachusetts (1988 (1988)) |
| Founder | William Townsend |
| Headquarters |
73 Chapel Street, Newton, Massachusetts
,
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Area served | Worldwide |
Key people | William T. Townsend |
| Products | WAM Robotic Arm, BarrettHand |
| Website | Barrett.com |
Newton, Massachusetts, USA-based Barrett Technology was incorporated by William T. Townsend in 1990.[1] Barrett manufactures robotic arms and hands installed in 20 countries on 6 continents. Barrett is credited in The Guinness Book of World Records, Millennium Edition, as maker of the world’s “most advanced robotic arm.”[2] Its 7-axis robotic arm, named the WAM arm for Whole Arm Manipulation[3] is based on Puck electronics[4] and mechanical[5][6][7] drive technologies and designed to interact directly with people.[3][8] One application of an early version of the technology has been the arm manufactured and sold by MAKO Surgical Corp. which enables haptically-guided minimally-invasive knee surgery.[9]
The Puck powered BarrettHand BH8-series product is based on technology licensed from the University of Pennsylvania[10][11] and developed by Gill Pratt, Yoky Matsuoka, and William Townsend[12] into its present form.
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 1982–1984 | Townsend works in Massachusetts Institute of Technology's "motor" lab (LEES) where novel servomotor CMOS-FET configurations/algorithms are being developed |
| 1987 | Research team at MIT invents cable-differential drive, high-speed cable drive, and haptic (WAM) robotic arm |
| 1990 | Barrett Technology, Inc. incorporated |
| 1991 | Barrett markets brushless motor with integrated drive electronics |
| 1992 | US Patents[5][6] issued on cable-drive technologies |
| 1993 | Barrett builds first BarrettHand prototype, combining Barrett and UPenn technologies[10][11] |
| 1995 | US Patent[7] issued on a manual cable pretensioner |
| 1997 | Barrett secures exclusive worldwide control of the WAM cable-drive patents[5][6] from MIT |
| 1998 | Barrett signs exclusive license deal with MAKO Surgical Corp. for medical applications |
| 2001 | Burt Doo becomes Barrett's Operations Chief and invests in the Company |
| 2002 | Covert work begins on Puck development |
| 2004 | Barrett builds first puck-based prototype WAM for NASA-JSC |
| 2005 | MAKO Surgical Corp. wins U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval to market a modified WAM for knee surgery |
| 2006 | MAKO begins shipping its version of the WAM for knee surgery under license from Barrett |
| 2007 | US Patent[12] awarded for Hand with integrated "Palm" camera |
| 2007 | Barrett begins work on next-generation Puck, code-named "P3" and expected to be released in 2012 |
| 2009 | US Patent[4] awarded on the Puck, other patents pending internationally |
Rooks, Brian, "The harmonious robot" (PDF), Industrial Robot, archived from the original (PDF) on 2010-11-19, retrieved 2010-06-07
Smith, Julian (23 March 2007), "Can Robots Be Programmed to Learn from Their Own Experiences?", Scientific American
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