SLEEK SHINY ROBOTS OF THE FUTURE HOW TO
“You have plus/minus 360-degree movement on all joints, you have safety features, and then there’s the easy programming, where you learn how to program a robot in a couple of minutes rather than in a couple of months.” What is the technology? What’s inside the arm in terms of motors and gears and electronics? I think that was sort of what opened up the possibility to start “robotizing” a lot of applications that you could not or would not automate with traditional robots. And then there’s the easy programming, where you learn how to program a robot in a couple of minutes rather than in a couple of months. You have safety features that allow people to develop collaborative applications in which robots and humans share the same workspace-that’s a huge step forward. You have plus/minus 360-degree movement on all of the joints, which isn’t common in the industry. Iversen: What makes the robots different is their design and flexibility.
Spectrum: And what is the technology they created? What makes the UR robots different from other industrial robots? So, yes, they believed they had something unique. It wasn’t exactly like the UR arms, but basically the idea was the same-robots that were safer, flexible, and much easier to configure, program, and use than traditional robots. IEEE Spectrum: When the three founders decided to start Universal Robots, were they working on a technology they believed was unique?Įnrico Krog Iversen: One of the founders did a lot of research in modular robotics, and had previously built robots with multiple joints. The following has been condensed and edited for clarity. Photo: IEEE Spectrumīefore the demonstrations, I spoke with Iversen about the company’s technology, the competition, and its expansion plans. The robots are used to automate tasks such as machine tending, packaging, gluing, painting, polishing, and assembling parts.Įnrico Krog Iversen and the UR-5 robot arm at the In fact, Universal Robots, based in Odense, Denmark, has sold about 4000 robots all over the world (the UR-5 sells for US $35,000, and a more powerful model, the UR-10, costs $45,000). Sure, it’s a silly “application.” But if a reporter can do that after 10 minutes with the robot, imagine what a factory worker or technician can do in a real manufacturing environment. IEEE Spectrum senior editor Erico Guizzo how to program the robot. Universal Robots CEO Enrico Krog Iversen demonstrates the UR-5 arm and teaches I found the tablet interface a bit user unfriendly (there are dozens of menus, buttons, tabs, and panes crammed on the screen), but with some guidance I was able to create my own “application,” making the arm push a plastic cup into a trash can: He showed me how you can program the robot simply by grabbing it, moving it around, and tapping on a touchscreen. It’s also safe for people nearby, even if it bumps on them, a feature that Iversen was willing to demonstrate using his own body. Iversen told me that the UR-5 is different from other factory robot arms because it’s compact and lightweight (they carried it on a hand truck all over Manhattan), easy to program, and affordable. We had bots in the office before, but this was the first time someone brought in an industrial robot. Inside was a shiny, sleek gray-and-blue robotic arm, and before I could hand him my business card, Iversen and one of his engineers had set up the robot on the conference room table.
Last month, Enrico Krog Iversen, the CEO of Universal Robots, showed up at the IEEE Spectrum office in New York City with a large cardboard box.
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