Barrett Technology
, 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 Corp. 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.
Company history
| Date | Event |
| 1982–1984 | Townsend works in Massachusetts Institute of Technology's "motor" lab 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 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 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 Corp. for medical applications |
| 2001 | Burt Doo 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 Corp. wins U.S. Food and Drug Administration 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 |