Rethink Robotics (formerly Heartland Robotics, Inc.) is a robotics company co-founded by

Rodney Brooks Rodney Allen Brooks (born 30 December 1954) is an Australian roboticist, Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, author, and robotics entrepreneur, most known for popularizing the actionist approach to robotics. He was a Panasonic Profes ...

and Ann Whittaker in 2008. Rethink Robotics is now part of the

HAHN Group The HAHN Group GmbH is a group of companies that specialize in industrial automation and robotics. There are about 1600 employees at 29 locations in Austria, China, Croatia, Czech Republic, Germany, the United Kingdom, India, Israel, Mexico, ...

. Rethink Robotics has won awards and has been an

Edison Awards Edison Awards is an American company that runs an annual competition honoring excellence in innovation in a broad range of categories. Company The Edison Awards were established by the American Marketing Association in 1987 and has been an in ...

finalist.

History

Rethink Robotics was founded in 2008 as a startup aiming to create low-cost robots. In 2012, they released the robot Baxter. In 2015, they released a smaller and more flexible counterpart to Baxter, Sawyer, that was designed to perform smaller, more detailed tasks. In 2016, they released their collaborative robots (

cobot A cobot, or collaborative robot, is a robot intended for direct human-robot interaction within a shared space, or where humans and robots are in close proximity. Cobot applications contrast with traditional industrial robot applications in which ...

s) worldwide. These robots were designed to be easy to set up and work alongside, rather than replace, humans in factory environments. In October 2018, Rethink Robotics ceased operations and sold off its assets. Other companies picked up support for the robots. * Most of the Rethink Robotics assets were bought by a distributor, the

, a

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ge ...

automation specialist. HAHN Group acquired all of Rethink's patents and trademarks as well as Rethink's Intera 5 software platform. * About 100 Baxter robots and the rights to sell them in North America were bought by Hunan CoThink Robotics Technology Company. In October 2019, one year after the acquisition of assets through the German

, Rethink Robotics launched the new Sawyer BLACK Edition. The headquarters of Rethink Robotics moved from

Rheinböllen Rheinböllen is a town in the Rhein-Hunsrück-Kreis (district) in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. It belongs to the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' Simmern-Rheinböllen, whose seat is in Simmern. It was the seat of the former ''Verbandsgemeinde'' Rheinbö ...

Bochum Bochum ( , also , ; wep, Baukem) is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia. With a population of 364,920 (2016), is the sixth largest city (after Cologne, Düsseldorf, Dortmund, Essen and Duisburg) of the most populous German federal state of N ...

in mid 2020, and signed a partnership with

Siemens Siemens AG ( ) is a German multinational conglomerate corporation and the largest industrial manufacturing company in Europe headquartered in Munich with branch offices abroad. The principal divisions of the corporation are ''Industry'', ''E ...

Products

*Intera software platform * Baxter and Sawyer

collaborative robots A cobot, or collaborative robot, is a robot intended for direct human-robot interaction within a shared space, or where humans and robots are in close proximity. Cobot applications contrast with traditional industrial robot applications in which r ...

(cobots) * ClickSmart Gripper Kits

References

{{reflist, 2 2008 establishments in Massachusetts Companies based in Bochum Industrial robotics companies Technology companies established in 2008