The first company in the world to introduce robotic systems capable of interacting with people, Barrett Technology was created 30 years ago by Bill Townsend, a pioneer with an engineering degree and PhD from MIT's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (now CSAIL). He registered a dozen patents issued in the United States, Europe and Japan, and was awarded the prestigious Joseph Engelberger Award in 2003 by the Robotic Industries Association for the first robotic arm equipped with haptic perception, the WAM (Whole Arm Manipulation). This system has been progressively refined over the course of the 1990s by Barrett, thanks in part to investments secured from government agencies such as DoE, NASA and NSF. This work empowered his company to become a leading designer of robotic arms and hands, with its products present in 18 countries on 6 continents.

"We are thrilled to begin an important new chapter for Barrett by collaborating with Oversonic.” says Bill Townsend, founder and president of Barrett Technology, “Integrating our robotic-hand technology with Oversonic's humanoid robot will be a major leap forward."

"We are proud to kick off this collaboration with a company that is a pioneer in the field of collaborative robotics," says Fabio Puglia, founder and president of Oversonic, "by bringing together many of our companies' most strategic competencies. With Barrett we have the opportunity to more rapidly evolve many of the functionalities that our robotic systems, starting with RoBee, use in the activities in which they are applied, whether in industries or healthcare facilities. In general, we are united by a common understanding of technological innovation and a vision of progress that brings, more and more, machines closer to people in a collaborative way."