- Universal Robots has been expanding at a rapid pace, selling 2000 robots last year and planning to sell 4000 this year, with expected revenue of $100 million. With a more portable and affordable offering, the company wants to bring robots to companies—especially small and medium businesses—for which automation has been too complex or costly.
- The UR3 will sell for US $23,000 in the United States. Like its predecessors, the UR3 is a 6-axis articulated arm that can perform a host of tasks (pick-and-place, soldering, screwing, gluing, painting) in close collaboration with human workers. To program the robot, you can simply grab it, move it around, and tap on a touchscreen to record the desired positions and actions.
- Collaborative robots are one of the hottest trends in industrial automation. Competing with Universal Robots are startups like Rethink Robotics (creator of the two-armed humanoid Baxter) and traditional robot makers such as ABB (which has a “robotic coworker” called FRIDA YuMi), among others.