William T. Townsend

William T. "Bill" Townsend
Alma materMIT, Northeastern
OccupationsCEO, Barrett Technology
Bill Townsend

Bill Townsend founded Barrett Technology in 1988. He is an entrepreneur[1] and inventor 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.[2][3][4][5][6][7] Recent patents cover both medical products[8][9][10][11] and the Puck® brushless motor controllers[12][13][14] with substantial funding from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH)[15] and the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).[16]

Bill obtained his MS[17] and PhD[18][19] degrees in Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1984 and 1988 respectively. He received a BS in 1982 from Northeastern University. He has been awarded nineteen US patents[20] and many additional international equivalents and has won several professional awards including the A3--Association for Advancing Automation and Robotics: Joseph Engelberger Award pioneering the first haptic robot (WAM arm®) designed in the 1980s at the MIT AI Lab (now CSAIL) to interact physically with people.[21][22]

References

  1. ↑ "Recovery Robots". Radio Entrepreneurs. 2025-07-31.
  2. ↑ "Joanne Pransky interviews Dr William Townsend: MIT entrepreneur develops whole-arm manipulation for robot/human interaction". Industrial Robot. 40 (6): 515–518. 2013-10-14. doi:10.1108/IR-07-2013-384. ISSN 0143-991X.
  3. ↑ Townsend, W.; Salisbury, J. (1987). "The Effect of coulomb friction and stiction on force control". Proceedings. 1987 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation. Vol. 4. Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers. pp. 883–889. doi:10.1109/ROBOT.1987.1087936.
  4. ↑ Townsend, W. T.; Salisbury, J. K. (1988-09-01). "The Efficiency Limit of Belt and Cable Drives". Journal of Mechanisms, Transmissions, and Automation in Design. 110 (3): 303–307. doi:10.1115/1.3267462. ISSN 0738-0666.
  5. ↑ US5207114A, Jr, J. Kenneth Salisbury & Townsend, William T., "Compact cable transmission with cable differential", issued 1993-05-04
  6. ↑ US5046375A, Jr, J. Kenneth Salisbury; Townsend, William T. & DiPietro, David M. et al., "Compact cable transmission with cable differential", issued 1991-09-10
  7. ↑ US4903536A, Jr, J. Kenneth Salisbury; Townsend, William T. & DiPietro, David M. et al., "Compact cable transmission with cable differential", issued 1990-02-27
  8. ↑ US12350830B2, Townsend, William T.; Wilkinson, David & Jenko, Alexander et al., "Multi-active-axis, non-exoskeletal rehabilitation device", issued 2025-07-08
  9. ↑ US10925797B2, Townsend, William T.; Wilkinson, David & Jenko, Alexander et al., "Multi-active-axis, non-exoskeletal rehabilitation device", issued 2021-02-23
  10. ↑ US10130546B2, Townsend, William T.; Wilkinson, David & Jenko, Alexander et al., "Multi-active-axis, non-exoskeletal rehabilitation device", issued 2018-11-20
  11. ↑ US12447089B2, Wilkinson, David D.; Yen, Alvin & IV, Claude F. Valle et al., "Multi-active-axis, non-exoskeletal robotic rehabilitation device", issued 2025-10-21
  12. ↑ US12494725B2, IV, Claude F. Valle; Blank, Amy A. & Zenowich, Brian et al., "High performance current sensing architecture for brushless motors", issued 2025-12-09
  13. ↑ US11290043B2, IV, Claude F. Valle; Blank, Amy A. & Zenowich, Brian et al., "High performance current sensing architecture for brushless motors", issued 2022-03-29
  14. ↑ US10148155B2, Wilkinson, David; Botticelli, Peter & Drumm, Donald et al., "Method and apparatus for connecting an ultracompact, high-performance motor controller to an ultracompact, high-performance brushless DC motor", issued 2018-12-04
  15. ↑ "RELEASE: Auchincloss Tours Barrett's Manufacturing Plant, Announces $1.6 Million NIH Grant". U.S. Congressman Jake Auchincloss. 2021-07-16. Retrieved 2026-04-24.
  16. ↑ "The 24th Aerospace Mechanisms Symposium" (PDF). NASA Technical Reports Server. 1990. pp. 127–144. Retrieved 2026-04-24.
  17. ↑ Townsend, William Thomas., and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering. Rotor Balancing of a 10 MVA Superconducting Generator. 1984, http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/57724. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Mechanical Engineering.
  18. ↑ Townsend, William Thomas., and Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Mechanical Engineering. The Effect of Transmission Design on Force-Controlled Manipulator Performance. 1988, http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/14366. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Mechanical Engineering.
  19. ↑ Townsend, William T. (1988-04-08). "The Effect of Transmission Design on Force-Controlled Manipulator Performance". MIT Libraries. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, Technical Report AITR-1054. hdl:1721.1/6835. Retrieved 2026-04-29.
  20. ↑ Affairs (OPA), USPTO Office of Public. "United States Patent and Trademark Office". www.uspto.gov. Retrieved 2026-04-24.
  21. ↑ "Innova Holdings, Inc. appointed as value-added reseller for Barrett Technology Inc". Industrial Robot. 33 (2). 2006-03-01. doi:10.1108/ir.2006.04933bab.003. ISSN 0143-991X.
  22. ↑ "Engelberger Past Winners List". Automate. Retrieved 2026-04-24.
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