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According to bizjournals, Baxter the robot is now even more ready for life "outside the cage." That's how Jim Lawton, chief marketing officer for Boston-based robot makerRethink Robotics, describes Baxter's new software update, called the Robot Positioning System. The company recently released a software update for its manufacturing robot, Baxter, giving the robots much more mobility in a manufacturing or distribution setting..

Traditionally, industrial robots were "confined in cages" and bolted down to the floor, while using specific location coordinates to identify objects for any given task.

Rethink Robotics' newest software update allows its manufacturing robot Baxter to become mobile (at the request of a human, of course) and quickly move around from task to task in minutes instead of days or weeks. The robot is also now able to identify objects even after they've been bumped or shifted accidentally or on purpose. The robot can do that because of the new positioning software, as well as cameras in its hands and in its head.

"It can detect when something has shifted, reorient itself, and continue to do its task, and all that can be done without anybody reprogramming it or tweaking any code," Lawton said in an interview.

The robot can do that because of the new positioning software, as well as cameras in its hands and in its head.

Lawton said he doesn't know of any other industrial robot that has this advanced positioning technology integrated into it. The technology has been in the works for months, though the robot's technology has been slowly advancing toward this moment since the development of Baxter in 2008.

"We've programmed the robot's operating system to think about objects and the orientation of those objects relative to one another as opposed to absolute coordinates in space, and that dates back to the original inception of Baxter," Lawton said.

See the robot in action in the video clip…

Robot mobility, like the Kiva Systems robots in Amazon's warehouses, is critical to building flexibility and efficiency into supply chains. It's good to see the robot manufacturers realizing that fact.