Baxter
Dual-arm collaborative industrial and research robot
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Baxter is a humanoid, anthropomorphic collaborative robot built by Rethink Robotics with two compliant, force-sensing arms and an animated screen face used to convey intent. It was designed to work safely alongside people on repetitive factory tasks such as loading, sorting, and material handling, and could be taught by physically guiding its arms rather than writing code. A research variant exposed a ROS-based software interface for academic and developer use.
Released: 2012
RoboZaps evaluation note
Buyer-side view of Baxter
RoboZaps reviews Baxter as part of a broader robot shortlist, not as a single-vendor pitch. Buyers should compare availability, deployment maturity, support terms, integration work, and total cost before committing.
- Spec sources
- 0 linked
- Last verified
- Not verified
- Availability
- customer confirmed
- Support caveat
- Verify local training, maintenance, parts, and uptime terms.
Best fit
Teams that need to compare Baxter against otherindustrial cobots options with deployment readiness, commercial terms, and support assumptions made explicit.
Not best fit
Buyers who need a guaranteed off-the-shelf deployment before confirming current availability, integrator coverage, site readiness, and post-sale support ownership.
Commercial review before shortlist
Before recommending a robot, RoboZaps checks whether the commercial and lifecycle picture is clear enough for a buyer to act.
- price range
- availability
- lead time
- support terms
- deployment readiness
- training needs
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Buyer-intent resources
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Overview
Baxter was a dual-arm collaborative robot introduced by Rethink Robotics, the Boston-based company co-founded by iRobot co-founder Rodney Brooks. Unlike traditional caged industrial arms, Baxter was built with compliant, force-sensing arms and integrated safety sensing so it could operate directly alongside human workers without protective barriers. An animated face on its head display communicated where the robot was about to move and its current state, making its behavior more predictable to nearby people.
The robot was aimed at repetitive, low-to-moderate precision factory work such as loading and unloading machines, sorting, packing, and material handling. A defining feature was its training model: a worker with no programming background could teach a new task simply by physically moving the arms through the motion and confirming via on-screen prompts, rather than writing conventional robot code.
Alongside the manufacturing product, Rethink offered a Baxter Research Robot variant with an open software development kit built on ROS, which became widely used in university and corporate research labs. Rethink Robotics ceased operations in 2018 and its assets were sold, so the original Baxter is no longer in production.
Key Features
- Two compliant, force-sensing arms with series-elastic actuators enabling safe operation around people
- Train-by-demonstration setup: tasks taught by hand-guiding the arms instead of programming
- Animated screen face that signals the robot's intent and state to nearby workers
- Integrated sensing including arm cameras, sonar, and joint-level torque sensing
- Research variant with an open, ROS-based software development kit for custom applications
Videos
Deployment Evidence
Baxter Discontinuation — Internal Assessment
Rethink Robotics ceased all operations in October 2018; Baxter is discontinued. Existing units continue operating at customer sites but no new production, support, or parts supply.
Deployment Readiness
Integration & SDK
- ROS Support
- Supported
- SDK Available
- Supported
- API Docs
- View Docs
- Supported Platforms
- Linux, Ubuntu 14.04, ROS 1 (Indigo), Python
Support & Service
Regions
—Support details not available
Specifications
Mechanics
| Degrees of Freedom | 14 |
| Locomotion | Stationary |
Performance
| Payload Capacity | 2.2 kg |
| Reach | 1210 mm |
| Repeatability | 5 mm |
Physical
| Weight | 75 kg |
| Height | 1880 mm |
Sensing
| Sensors | Cameras, sonar, torque sensors |
Software
| SDK Support | Yes |
| ROS Compatible | Yes |
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