Barrett Technology
Encyclopedia
Cambridge, Massachusetts
, USA-based Barrett Technology was incorporated by William T. Townsend
in 1990. Barrett manufactures robotic arms and hands installed in 20 countries on 6 continents. Barrett is credited in The Guinness Book of World Records, Millennium Edition, as maker of the world’s “most advanced robotic arm.” Its 7-axis robotic arm, named the WAM arm for Whole Arm Manipulation is based on Puck electronics and mechanical drive technologies and designed to interact directly with people. One application of an early version of the technology has been the arm manufactured and sold by MAKO Surgical which enables haptically-guided minimally-invasive knee surgery.
The Puck powered BarrettHand BH8-series product is based on technology licensed from the University of Pennsylvania
and developed by Gill Pratt, Yoky Matsuoka
, and William Townsend into its present form.
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent...
, USA-based Barrett Technology was incorporated by William T. Townsend
William T. Townsend
Bill Townsend founded Barrett Technology in 1988. He is credited with introducing the WAM arm, the first haptic robot and one of the first haptic devices based on novel differential and high-speed cable drives....
in 1990. Barrett manufactures robotic arms and hands installed in 20 countries on 6 continents. Barrett is credited in The Guinness Book of World Records, Millennium Edition, as maker of the world’s “most advanced robotic arm.” Its 7-axis robotic arm, named the WAM arm for Whole Arm Manipulation is based on Puck electronics and mechanical drive technologies and designed to interact directly with people. One application of an early version of the technology has been the arm manufactured and sold by MAKO Surgical which enables haptically-guided minimally-invasive knee surgery.
The Puck powered BarrettHand BH8-series product is based on technology licensed from the University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...
and developed by Gill Pratt, Yoky Matsuoka
Yoky Matsuoka
Yoky Matsuoka is an associate professor of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Washington , director of that university's Neurobotics Laboratory, director of the and a 2007 MacArthur Fellow...
, and William Townsend into its present form.
Company history
| Date | Event |
|---|---|
| 1982–1984 | Townsend works in Massachusetts Institute of Technology Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in... 's "motor" lab (LEES LEES The Laboratory for Electromagnetic and Electronic Systems at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology provides the theoretical basis, and component, circuit and system technologies required to develop advanced electrical energy applications... ) where novel servomotor CMOS-FET configurations/algorithms are being developed |
| 1987 | Research team at MIT invents cable-differential drive, high-speed cable drive, and haptic (WAM) robotic arm |
| 1990 | Barrett Technology, Inc. incorporated |
| 1991 | Barrett markets brushless motor with integrated drive electronics |
| 1992 | US Patents issued on cable-drive technologies |
| 1993 | Barrett builds first BarrettHand prototype, combining Barrett and UPenn University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution... technologies |
| 1995 | US Patent issued on a manual cable pretensioner |
| 1997 | Barrett secures exclusive worldwide control of the WAM cable-drive patents from MIT |
| 1998 | Barrett signs exclusive license deal with MAKO Surgical for medical applications |
| 2001 | Burt Doo Burt Doo Burt Doo is Chief Operations Officer at Cambridge, MA based Barrett Technology, which he joined in 2001. He began his career in the GE-operations-management program after graduating from Boston University with a BA in Management. In 1970, Mr. Doo co-founded Altron, where he was executive vice... becomes Barrett's Operations Chief and invests in the Company |
| 2002 | Covert work begins on Puck development |
| 2004 | Barrett builds first puck-based prototype WAM for NASA-JSC |
| 2005 | MAKO Surgical wins U.S. Food and Drug Administration Food and Drug Administration The Food and Drug Administration is an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services, one of the United States federal executive departments... (FDA) approval to market a modified WAM for knee surgery |
| 2006 | MAKO begins shipping its version of the WAM for knee surgery under license from Barrett |
| 2007 | US Patent awarded for Hand with integrated "Palm" camera |
| 2007 | Barrett begins work on next-generation Puck, code-named "P3" and expected to be released in 2012 |
| 2009 | US Patent awarded on the Puck, other patents pending internationally |