Rethink Robotics Releases Sawyer Robot to Global Market
Today, Rethink Robotics announced that its Sawyer collaborative robot is available for purchase for use in factories around the world.
The product, which was announced in March, is a single-armed robot that can tend to machines, test circuit boards and handle other precise tasks. Unlike many factory robots, the robot can “feel” its way into fixtures or machines with varying parts and positions, leveraging artificial intelligence.
The robot is 42 pounds and features an eight-pound payload with seven degrees of freedom. It uses a Cognex camera to see and Rethink’s proprietary Robot Positioning System to gain spatial awareness.
General Electric has been testing the robot for a month and will deploy the first operational Sawyer at a GE Lighting plant in Hendersonville, North Carolina.
"The ability to deploy a smart, collaborative robot like Sawyer provides a significant flexibility advantage to our production team, while still meeting our world-class quality, precision and speed standards," says Kelley Brooks, global advanced manufacturing and engineering leader at GE Lighting. "Utilizing this technology is an integral part of our Brilliant Factory initiative to connect all parts of the supply chain from product design, to engineering, to the factory floor and beyond in order to deliver customized LED solutions for our customers."
