Universal Robots was founded in 2005 by the engineers Esben Østergaard, Kasper Støy, and Kristian Kassow. During joint research at the Syddansk UniversitetOdense, they came to the conclusion that the robotics market was dominated by heavy, expensive, and unwieldy robots. As a consequence they developed the idea to make robot technology accessible to small and medium-sized businesses. In 2008 the first UR5 cobots were available on the Danish and German market. In 2012 the second cobot, UR10, was launched. At Automatica 2014 in Munich the Company launched a totally revised version of its cobots. One year later, in spring 2015 the table-top cobot UR3 was launched. At Automatica 2018 in Munich a brand new generation of Universal Robots' cobots called e-Series was launched raising the standard for collaborative robots. In September 2019, the company launched UR16e suited for high-payload tasks, like heavy material handling, heavy machine tending, packaging & palletising, and autonomous mobile robots. UR was purchased by Teradyne for in 2015.
Products
The products consist of the heavy-duty UR16e, the table-top UR3 and UR3e, the UR5 and UR5e,, and the UR10 and UR10e. All cobots are six-jointed robot arms with a very low weight including cable of respectively 11 kilos, 20 kilos, 33 kilos, and 33 kilos. The UR3 and UR3e have a lifting ability of 3 kilos and a working radius of 500mm, the UR5 and UR5e have a lifting ability of 5 kilos and a working radius of 850mm, the UR10 and UR10e a lifting ability of 10 kilos and a working radius of 1300mm, and the UR16e a lifting ability of 16 kilos and a working radius of 900mm. The e-Series has a pose repeatability between ± 0.03mm and 0.05mm. Universal Robots collaborative robots can work right alongside personnel with no safety guarding, based on the results of a mandatory risk assessment. The safety settings of the latest generation of Universal Robots’ lightweight cobots can be adjusted for each specific solution. The robot arm can run in two operating modes of the safety functions; a normal and a reduced one. A switch between safety settings during the cobot’s operation is also possible. All these safety functions are safety rated PL d and certified by TÜV NORD. UR's cobots are used within both small to medium-sized businesses and large corporations within industries such as automotive, electronics, metal & machining, pharmaceuticals, and manufacturing. In 2016, the company launched its online ecosystem Universal Robots+, and in early 2017 it launched a new online digital learning platform called Universal Robots Academy. Through this platform, users go through nine learning modules, learning how to program the UR collaborative robots. In 2018, a brand new generation of Universal Robots' cobots called e-Series was launched raising the standard for collaborative robots. The 'e' in e-Series stands for empowering, ease of use, everyone and evolution. The e-Series consist of four cobots: the UR3e, UR5e, UR10e, and finally the UR16e which was launched in 2019. In comparison to the previous generation, the CB Series, they have a higher accuracy for both position repeatability and force and torque, since they have a built-in Force/Torque sensor. With the e-Series, they also added a few more safety features, re-designed the teach pendant to be more intuitive and simplified the programming flow with more wizards.
