With eight new adjustable safety rated functions, Universal Robots' new robot adapts advanced safety settings to each specific application. The third generation of the UR5 and UR10 robot arms also comes equipped with True Absolute Encoders that is designed to eliminate the need for re-initializing the robot, enabling automatic start-up and easier integration into other machinery.
"This patented new safety concept is a logical development of our collaborative robot arms," said Esben Ostergaard, CTO of Universal Robots. "When a human enters the robot's work cell, the robot arm can operate in reduced mode, and then resume full speed when the person leaves again. Or, the robot can run full speed inside a CNC machine, for example, and then reduce speed when outside."
To achieve a switch between normal and reduced safety mode, eight safety functions are monitored by the new patented safety system: joint positions and speeds, TCP positions, orientation, speed and force, as well as the momentum and power of the robot. The settings can only be changed in a password protected area.
Another key innovation of Universal Robots' new generation of collaborative robots is the True Absolute Encoders, allowing the robot to achieve faster start-up because its position is recognized upon power-up. "With the integration of the True Absolute Encoder, our robot arms can be integrated even more easily into other machineries while start-up also becomes much faster and simpler for all applications," said Ostergaard.
"Unlike most other industrial robots with incremental encoders that work like absolute encoders, until the battery runs out, the encoders in the UR robots are not battery driven, therefore they are named 'True Absolute Encoders,'" said a company spokesperson. "This eliminates the need to frequently re-initialize the robot arms since their position in space is known despite the robot not requiring battery power to achieve this function.
"Though the robot arms UR5 and UR10 are now equipped with numerous new features, Universal Robots remains true to its approach of user-friendly, lightweight robots. The visual appearance of the six-jointed UR5 and UR10 robot arms, with a payload of 5/10 kilos, respectively, remains unchanged. But inside of the robot arm itself, as well as in the controller, are more features: 16 additional digital I/Os doubles the number of built-in I/Os, which are easy to configure either as digital signals or as safety signals. The control box has a revised design and a rebuilt controller to further improve the possibilities for connecting equipment to the control boxes."
"With our flexible robot arms, we address a broad target group - whether it is loading/unloading of CNC machines in a 10-man firm or a gluing process at an automotive manufacturer, everyone benefits from our robots. They perform the dull or harmful jobs that previously needed to be done by humans," said Enrico Krogh Iversen, CEO, Universal Robots.
All of the new features of the third generation robots have been certified by Technischer Überwachungs-Verein (TÜV), a German organization that validates the safety of products, and tested in accordance with EN ISO 13849:2008 PL d and EN ISO 10218-1:2011, Clause 5.4.3.
For more information contact:
Universal Robots USA
11 Technology Drive
East Setauket, NY 11733
631-610-9664
ur.na@universal-robots.com
www.universal-robots.com