Meet The Other Robots Set To Invade Manufacturing

The robots really are coming.

In today’s top story (see “This Robot Could Transform Manufacturing”), I write about a clever new industrial robot developed by robotics pioneer and the founder of iRobot, Rodney Brooks. Unlike a conventional factory machine this new robot, Baxter, is safe to work alongside, highly adaptive, and amazingly easy to program. Just show it how to do a task and it'll get on with it. Baxter really has the potential to shake up manufacturing by bringing automation to completely new areas of work.

But Rethink isn’t the only company working safer, more flexible, and more human-like industrial robots. Several established robots manufacturers and a few upstarts are developing similarly innovative products. The shift has been driven by rapid improvements in hardware and software in the last few years. And the result really does look like a robot revolution in the making. Here are the most interesting prototypes that could soon be challenging Baxter...