About

Barrett spun out of the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (now CSAIL) where Barrett’s founder, Bill Townsend, earned his PhD creating the world’s first human-interactive robot with funding from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. With seed investment from Julianne Barrett and grants from NASA, NSF, NIH, DOE, and DARPA, Barrett developed its groundbreaking Puck® motor technology and highly-backdriveable gearless drives that power its world-class robots, including the WAM® arm, BarrettHand™, and Burt®. Burt®, for example, is an FDA-Registered, ISO13485-Certified medical device that promotes brain plasticity during recovery from stroke, with over 300 systems sold to hospitals worldwide.