Software platform introduced to power robot

Rethink Robotics has introduced Intera 2.1, a new software platform that powers the Baxter robot to provide safe, easy-to-train automation for a variety of manufacturing and production environments. The software delivers improvements to the robot's speed, performance, flexibility, and security, according to the manufacturer.

Motion presets allow users to balance speed and path requirements for a given task. Users have three options for defining waypoints: balanced (the robot follows its standard parameters for speed and precision), explicit (the robot follows the waypoints more precisely and in a controlled manner), and express (waypoints are used as general guidelines to increase speed where extreme precision is not required).

Users now can make slight adjustments to pick, place, and hold positions using simple commands in the software. A lock and unlock feature increases security, with user-defined access to the robot’s task and training menu.