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A brief survey of commercial robotic arms for research on manipulation

Article · June 2012

DOI: 10.1109/ISRA.2012.6219361

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 2012 IEEE Symposium on Robotics and Applications(ISRA)

A Brief Survey of Commercial Robotic Arms for Research on Manipulation

Zhenli Lu1,3,a, Aneesh Chauhan1,b, Filipe Silva1,2,c and Luís Seabra Lopes1,2,d
1. IEETA, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, 3810-193, Portugal
2. DETI, University of Aveiro, Aveiro, 3810-193, Portugal
3. Shenyang Ligong University, Shenyang, 110168, P.R.China
a. [email protected]; b. [email protected]; c. [email protected]; d. [email protected]

Abstract—Presently a vast variety of robust robotic arms are arms can be sold from relatively low prices to some
available commercially, some of which are extremely reliable surprisingly high ones. Especially for the institutes looking
in precision and repeatability. This makes them an ideal tool for robotic arms, different research objectives will result in
for research focused on manipulation. However, there is a lack completely different choices. Besides considering the
of an easily accessible comparative analysis that can assist standard parameters of arms – degrees of freedom (DOF),
researchers in choosing an arm that fits their research payload, repeatability, weight, workspace requirement etc. –
objectives. With an objective to provide such an analysis, this attention also needs to be paid to the controller, flexibility to
paper provides a comparative survey of the state of the art in add new sensing devices, possibility to integrate new and
commercial robotic arms - classified based on their price,
existing software, availability of the software simulator, after
performance and suitability for research on manipulation.
These arms are categorized into four classes: cheap
sales service etc. For future scalability, it is extremely
educational arms, low price industrial arms, research oriented important to take these parameters into consideration early
arms and modular light weight arms. Within each on, before a final purchase decision is made.
classification, some typical robotic arms are analyzed in detail This survey enumerates and introduces robotic arms that
to provide an overview of the functional capacities of the arms are suitable for open research problems on intelligent
in that particular class. manipulation and control. The surveyed arms have been
categorized into four classes:
Keywords-robotic arm; manipulation; light weight robot 1) Cheap educational arms: These arms are relatively
(LWR); research oriented arm cheap, with a price range between 300 and 500 Euros.
Equipped with a simple controller and cheap motors, these
I. INTRODUCTION arms are not very precise and their functionality limited.
However, such arms will suit educators, hobbyists and
Robotic arms, as typical mechatronic products, are researchers if they are investigating simple joint control and
widely manufactured and sold all over the word. Hundreds manipulation tasks. For the website links to some of the
of kinds of arms are available through a multitude of companies that offer such arms please see [1]–[5].
companies, where these arms are primarily developed to 2) Low price industrial arms: The arms in this category
assist in industrial production and assembly lines. By offer high precision, robustness and repeatability. They
installing different tools on their standard wrist interfaces, normally come with powerful controllers that can be
these arms are being used in many applications that require programmed to achieve desired actions with a high degree of
great precision and repeatability (e.g. welding, manipulation, repeatability. An added advantage is that the companies that
spraying). offer such robots (for example, KUKA, ABB, Motoman,
Most of the research on improving the design and Mitsubishi) normally offer special discounts to educational
performance of the mechanical and control systems of the institutions on this particular product. For some research
commercially available arms is carried out by the robotic institutes, these arms are the product of choice. However, the
companies and their collaborating labs. The reliability and controllers (and associated software) of these robots are
robustness of these arms make them an important product normally not open to the institutes buying these arms,
and an invaluable test bed for the research units investigating making them a poor choice for investigations involving on
novel applications and intelligent control designs. Therefore, low level motor control. The references [6]–[13] provide
from the perspective of a researcher, choosing a suitable website links to some of the companies offering arms that
robot arm and its controller is a crucial research decision. fall in this category.
This paper is the product of almost one year of extensive 3) Research oriented arms: These arms are designed
market research (through internet and active communication especially for the purpose of conducting research. On the one
with robot manufacturing companies) and compiles the hand, they overcome the limitations of the “low price
collected information in the form of a survey of the state of industrial arms”. On the other hand, they are not ideal for
the art in commercially available robotic arms. real world industrial applications. Some of the companies
Depending on their target market, different companies and institutes that offer research arms can be visited online at
build robotic arms with different functionalities and [14]–[17].
performance. Based on the technical specifications, these

978-1-4673-2207-2/12/$31.00 嘋2012 IEEE 986

 2012 IEEE Symposium on Robotics and Applications(ISRA)

4) Modular light weight arms: These arms are the state of specifications in comparison to others. The later part of this
the art in robotic arm technology. Being modular and section will detail the key advantages this arm offers.
lightweight, they are suitable for both industrial and All motor pivot points of SG6-UT use integrated pem
domestic applications. In comparison to the arms in other stud pivot point, which provide an extra support and
categories, the price tag is significantly higher. For the resistance to stress induced by weight on the arm joints (Fig.
environment that requires unrestricted human robot
2a). This allows an increase in the payload capacity. Most of
interactions, these arms provide a safe, versatile and robust
research platform. These arms are an ideal tool for the the other cheap arms use tape or glue in these critical stress
institutes that can afford the price. Links to some of the areas. The wrist assembly of SG6-UT contains integrated
companies that manufacture modular light weight arms are slots (on top of the wrist joint and on the gripper fingers) to
available in [18],[19]. accommodate multiple sensing components (see Fig. 2b).
This is a survey of the robotic arms that can be used as a TABLE I
platform for multiple open research problems and not of PARAMETERS OF CHEAP EDUCATIONAL ROBOTIC ARMS
No. Pay
arms that are developed only for specific applications. For Name of load
Height Control Approx.
that reason many robotic companies (for example IGM [20]) (mm) system price (€)
DOF (g)
that develop arms only for specialized applications (welding, Arm trainer 5 130 510 Motor board 70.00
palletizing etc.) are excluded in this survey. Such strictly AL5D 6 110 482.6 RIOS 305.00
application oriented designs lead to robotic arms that are Edubot100 5 100 350 Robotica 1,285.00
RCS-6 kit 6 50 609.6 C++ 455.00
expensive and ill-suited to the research objectives that this
survey is intended for. SG6-UT 6 403 495.3 PBASIC 455.00
The remainder of this paper is organized as follows:
section II introduces some typical cheap educational arms;
section III presents low price industrial arms and analyzes
four of them in further detail; three research arms are
discussed in detail in section IV; section V introduces two
modular light weight arms; and section VI concludes the
survey.
a b
II. CHEAP EDUCATIONAL ROBOTIC ARMS Fig.2. (a) Pivot point [5] (b) Gripper [5]
Most of the arms in this category are manufactured using III. LOW PRICE INDUSTRIAL ROBOTIC ARMS
aluminum or PVC (polyvinyl chloride) and their joints are
supported by cheap Direct Current (DC) servo motors (see The cheap educational arms and their controllers are
Fig. 1) [1] – [5]. suitable only for very basic manipulation functions. In the
experiments where precision and repeatability are crucial,
these arms become a poor alternative. The low price
industrial arms come with powerful controllers and offer
high precision, robustness and repeatability. The high
performance of these arms makes them a good candidate for
advanced research on manipulation.
TABLE II
a b LIST OF LOW PRICE INDUSTRIAL ROBOTIC ARMS
Fig. 1. (a) Arm trainer ( PVC arm) [1] (b) SG6-UT (aluminum arm) [5] Company name Robot model Estimated Price (€)
These arms are available with 5/6 DOF and priced less ABB IRB 120 17,000.00
than 500 Euros. They normally constitute a rotating base, a KUKA KR 5 SIXX R650 20,000.00
single plane shoulder, an elbow, a wrist, a two-finger gripper Mitsubishi RV-1A-S11 17,000.00
and in some cases a rotational wrist. The manipulation of Adept Viper S650 27,000.00
motors is handled using either a microcontroller or a motor- Motoman SSF 2000 20,000.00
control board. Using serial communication (via RS232 or Epson C3-A601S 25,000.00
USB), the controller can exchange information with an Staubli TX40 20,000.00
external computer. This gives a certain level of flexibility to Kawasaki FS02 20,000.00
the user, such that heavy computations (inverse kinematics, During the survey, eight prominent robot manufacturing
communication with other sensors etc.) can be carried out on companies, that build robotic arms falling in this category,
the computer. It is relatively easy to program these arms to have been contacted. Table II lists these companies and their
demonstrate external joint control and some simple actions respective products along with the price information [6]–[13].
(e.g. pick and place). Table I lists some of the commercially Amongst these arms, four (Fig.3) will be detailed in the
available cheap robotic arms and their specifications. following subsections. The discussion on these arms also
Amongst the listed arms, SG6-UT [5], a 6DOF arm provides a general idea of what can be expected from the rest
provided by CrustCrawler adopts a more advanced design of the arms.

987
 2012 IEEE Symposium on Robotics and Applications(ISRA)

A. IRB 120 information regarding this robot and its specifications, please
IRB 120 [6] (Fig. 3a) is the smallest arm manufactured see [7].
by ABB. The small size of the arm makes it suitable for a C. RV-1A-S11
research environment with limited space. With 6 DOF and
the physical reach of 580mm, this 25 kg arm can handle RV-1A-S11 [8] (Fig. 3c) is a robotic arm produced by
payloads up to 3kg. The position repeatability of this robot is Mitsubishi. It is a 19kg arm, supports 6 DOF and has
in the range ±0.01mm. maximum reach of 418mm. It can carry payloads up to 1.5kg
and has the position repeatability within the range ±0.02mm.
This arm is supported by a 64-bit controller (CR1-571)
[25], which is designed to facilitate communication between
the controller and the external devices. This controller
supports networking using both Ethernet and CC-Link
technology. CR1-571 can be programmed using MELFA-
BASIC IV robot programming language, designed especially
a b
for a range of Mitsubishi robots. A 3D simulation software
(MELFA-Works) is also available, which can be used as an
add-on for SolidWorks 3D CAD design software [26]. A
vast range of grippers, sensors and many other external
components can also be selected from different libraries and
integrated directly into the MELFA-Works environment [27].
“RT Toolbox2” application under MELFA-Works provides
c d
enhanced robot programming and simulation capabilities that
Fig. 3. (a) IRB 120 [6] (b) KR5 SIXX R850 [7] (c) RV-1A-S11 [8] (d)
Adept Viper s650 [9]
allows for the possibility of designing and simulating novel
The arm is equipped with a powerful controller (IRC5) applications on the simulated robotic arm platform [28].
which can be programmed using RAPID (a programming MELFA-Works is available only for the MS Windows
language developed by ABB to control their robots) [21]. platform. Further information regarding this robot can be
For offline programming and investigation, ABB also offers found in its product manual available at the official website
a 3D visualization simulator (RobotStudio). To control the [8].
robot from a computer ABB provides the WEBWARE D. Adept Viper s650
software development kit (SDK) [22]. This SDK however is Adept Viper s650 [9] (Fig. 3d) is a six-DOF robotic arm
only available for Microsoft Windows operating systems. that weighs 28kg and has a physical reach of 653mm. The
The communication between the controller and an external maximum payload of this arm is 5kg and the position
device can be done using sockets. Hence, to a limited extent, repeatability is ±0.02mm.
the arm can be controlled using an external device (e.g. a This robot comes with the Adept SmartController CX
computer with Linux) that supports socket based motion controller that can optionally also support vision
communication. For detailed specifications of this robot, based sensing [29]. The controller uses the V+ operating
please see [6]. system designed by Adept for its robots [30]. V+
B. KR5 SIXX R850 programming language can then be used within this
KR5 SIXX R850 [7] (Fig. 3b) is a 6 DOF robotic arm operating system for programming high-level control
manufactured by KUKA. This arm weighs 29kg, has a functions. The communication between an external device
working range of 650mm and can support payloads up to and the controller is supported using TCP/IP communication
5kg. The position repeatability range of this arm is ± 0.03 protocols. Adept also develops AdeptNet, which is a
mm. Similar to IRB 120, this arm has a compact design, networking product that allows multiple Adept robots and
making it suitable for research environments with space other external devices to work together on an Ethernet based
limitations. Local Area Network (LAN).
This robot is controlled using “KR C2 sr” controller that For detailed information regarding this arm, please visit
can be programmed using KSS 7.0 (Kuka System Software) the official product website at [9].
[23]. This software allows robot control from a Microsoft E. Some observations about the arms in “low price
Windows based machines and the robot can be programmed industrial arms” category
using KRL (Kuka Robot Language, a programming language
This category consists of high performance and high
designed by KUKA for controlling their robots). The robot's
precision industrial arms. Although these arms are
controller also supports socket based communication and can
manufactured for lightweight industrial applications, they
be controlled through external devices other than those based
provide a valuable platform for research applications too.
on MS Windows platform. For offline programming and
Equipped with powerful controllers and versatile networking
control analysis, KUKA also provides KUKA.sim simulator
equipments, they can also communicate with many external
[24]. The structural design of the arm also facilitates
devices. All these arms have standard gripper interface
integration of many industrial sensors. For further
which is compatible with many different types of industry

988
 2012 IEEE Symposium on Robotics and Applications(ISRA)

standard grippers. Multiple other sensing devices can also be Many sensors can be easily integrated into the arm to
incorporated with most of these gripper interfaces. further facilitate “intelligent” manipulation control. Most of
The key disadvantage with these arms is – the software these sensors are available from NeuroRobotics. For
available for most of the controllers is only developed for example – force sensors for the grippers; stereoscopic
MS Windows platform and therefore if one wants to use camera for real-time tracking; and haptic interface for remote
another platform, separate software will have to be arm control by a human user. The key disadvantages of this
developed. Besides, the possibility of arm control from an arm are: the highly complex mechanical system; and the
external device is only limited to the high-level functions relatively small payload capacity. For further details on the
available in the APIs (Application Programming Interface) specifications of this arm, please see [14],[31].
developed by the arm manufacturers. This means that it is
very hard to realize and investigate low-level control B. Katana 450
functions. Katana 450 [33] (Fig. 5a) is a 6 DOF robotic arm
manufactured by Neuronics and is sold as both an industrial
IV. RESEARCH ORIENTED ROBOTIC ARMS and a research platform. It weighs 4.8 kg and has a
The arms in this category are designed especially for maximum reach of 517mm. The position repeatability of this
research use. The companies that develop these arms arm is ± 0.1 mm and it can handle payloads up to 0.4 kg [32].
consider research institutes and universities as their primary Katana 450 Uni Kit (Fig.5b) provides complete low level
market. Research oriented arms are developed to provide an motor control function.
open platform for research on manipulation. Contrary to the
low price industrial arms, their controller software is:
generally designed using C language (that is, no special or
new programming languages have been designed specifically
for their robot controllers); and the software of these
controllers is open to the users and is available for both MS
Windows and Linux platforms. These arms have been a b
designed to facilitate integration with new sensing devices Fig. 5. (a) Katana 450 [33] (b) Katana 450 Uni Kit [33]
and can incorporate many different sensors that are The control system of Katana 450 is based on RT-Linux
compatible (and controllable) with the control software (Real-Time Linux), where Linux kernel runs in the
provided with the arm. background while priority is given to processes that control
Next three subsections introduce research arms from the robotic arm hardware. Each axis of the arm is controlled
three different companies, where, their key specifications using TI-TMS320 32bit motor controller. The controller
and other relevant features are presented. communicates with the arm hardware using a CAN bus,
while there are many different options available for
A. NeuroArm 3.1 communicating with external devices (Ethernet, USB etc.).
NeuroArm 3.1 [14] (Fig. 4) is one of the research arms To control the robot from another device, the controller
manufactured by NeuroRobotics. It is a 6 DOF arm, supports information communication using TCP/IP [34].
weighing 5kg, has the maximum reach of 600mm and can For developing custom applications to control the arm,
handle payloads up to 0.75kg. Neuronics provides a powerful open-source C++ library
(KNI – Katana Native Interface) [35]. KNI also has an
interface for programs written in python and matlab. The
programs written in KNI can control the robot from an
external device and can also be run directly on the robot’s
controller.
For ease of use, Neuronics provide Katana4D software.
Katana4D is high-level software environment which can be
used to directly control the arm from a computer. It comes
Fig. 4. NeuroArm 3.1 [14]
with many inbuilt functionalities and algorithms (a scripting
The arm’s low level control and sensor monitoring is language, AI algorithms, possibility of teaching the arm by
carried out using the Atmel Atmega128 microcontroller unit. hand amongst others).
This controller functions along with proportional-derivative Based on the above features, Katana 450 is a good
(PD) controllers and position sensors at each robot joint. research platform for manipulation. The key disadvantages
This allows for real-time, closed loop position control and are: low payload of 0.4kg (which does not include the
open loop velocity control. The robot can communicate with gripper); and at present does not come with a simulator.
external devices using RS232 serial interface. The controller For further information on this arm and its characteristics,
software is available both for MS Windows and Linux. please see [15].
NeuroRobotics also provides a simulator for this arm C. UR-6-85-5-A
developed in Webots 3D simulation platform. UR-6-85-5-A (Fig. 6) is an industrial robotic arm
developed by Universal Robots [16]. Since certain parts of

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 2012 IEEE Symposium on Robotics and Applications(ISRA)

the robot controller can be opened for certain customers, this (5-7 DOF). This is a direct consequence of the modular
robot is classified as a research arm. architecture, since independent (and compatible) joint
modules can be easily integrated into the arm configuration
with fewer DOF. Based on the configuration, the maximum
arm reach can range from 400 to 1300 mm. The position
repeatability of the arm is in the range ±0.5 mm. The weight
of the arm and its payload capacity depends on the arm
configuration (19 kg weight and 9kg payload for the 6 axis
Fig. 6. UR-6-85-5-A [36] configuration) [18].
The key specifications of this arm are: weight, 18kg;
DOF, 6; payload, 5kg; working radius, 850mm; and
repeatability, ±0.1 mm. For in depth details of the robot’s
technical specifications, please see [37].
The robot comes with a powerful controller which has
multiple digital and analog I/O ports for communication
between the controller and the arm, as well as, the controller a b
and other external devices. The robot also comes with an Fig. 7. (a) Robotnik modular robot arm [38] (b) Kuka light-weight arm [39]
electrical interface that is compatible with many industrial The controller cabinet and the power unit of the arm are
sensors and PLCs (Programmable Logic Controller). integrated directly into the arm structure. This is
The control software of the arm is based on C accomplished by using modular servo actuators for each axis,
programming language. To program actions at the lowest where each actuator has its own power unit and controller.
level of the control system architecture, Universal Robots The communication and control from the external
provides a C based API. The robot also comes with a devices can be carried out using the CAN bus. The control
graphical interface (PolyScope). This interface is a high-level software is run directly on a computer which communicates
software environment, designed for users with limited with the arm in real time. This software is developed using
technical skills, which can be used to program the actions of C++ and is open-source. Apart form the control software,
the robot from a computer. Only for the purposes of research, Robotnik also provides the software drivers for each actuator
multiple parts of the controller can be opened to the research control for both Linux and Windows. A 3D simulation
institutions. environment deigned in Simulink (Matlab) is also available
from the robot manufacturers [38].
V. MODULAR LIGHT WEIGHT ARMS
B. Kuka Light Weight Robot (LWR) arm
The arms in this category have been designed especially
LWR (Fig. 7b) is a 7 DOF modular light weight arm
to work in the natural environments, where active
developed by KUKA, where each of the seven axis has
collaboration with and working alongside humans is
integrated torque sensors. The arm weighs 15kg and has a
necessary. These arms are state of the art light weight
payload of 7kg. The maximum reach of the arm is 868 mm
mechatronic devices which have very high payload capacity
and the repeatability accuracy is ± 0.05 mm.
with respect to their own structural weight. Designing such
The robot is equipped with KRC 2 lr controller. The
robots brings completely different/new challenges. The
control software is designed such that it is easy for the non-
design of these arms is modular in nature, that is, various
expert users to program the robot from a computer or a
parts are developed as independent modules. For example,
teaching pendant. The controller also allows for “hands on”
each joint has integrated electronics and sensing capabilities,
teaching, that is, the robot can be taught to accomplish
which leads to the real-time state awareness of each joint
repetitive tasks by manually moving the arm in sequential
independently. The modularity principle is applied not just in
steps [39].
the design of joints, but also to the controller and other
electronic and sensing devices on the robot. The information VI. CONCLUSION
from various modules is integrated to obtain the complete
state information of the robot. To reduce the arm weight, This paper presented a brief survey of the current state of
while maintaining the strength, various lightweight materials the art in commercial robotic arms that can be taken as viable
have been used in designing the structure, controller, motors platforms for research on manipulation. The arms were
etc. As of now, in comparison to the arms in the other divided into four categories based on their technical
categories, the modular lightweight arms are priced specifications, functionalities and performance. For each
significantly higher. category, a set of typical arms were introduced and their
In the following subsections, two typical modular light specifications discussed. For each of these categories,
weight arms (Fig. 7) are introduced along with some of their following conclusions can be drawn:
specifications. 1) Cheap educational arms are a good platform for
investigating basic motor and joint control. However, these
A. Robotnik modular robotic arm arms are not very precise and their payload capacity is very
This arm(Fig. 7a) is based on the Schunk PowerCube low. Therefore, their applicability in the research on precise
modules. This arm can come in three different configurations manipulation is not advised. These arms, however, will

990
 2012 IEEE Symposium on Robotics and Applications(ISRA)

interest educators and research enthusiasts as an introductory [13] http://www.kawasakirobotics.com/products/?page=robotFseries

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[1] http://www.hobbytron.com/RobotArmKits.html mediabase/Product_Brochure_EN_0908.pdf)
[2] http://www.lynxmotion.com/Category.aspx?CategoryID=130 [33] DataSheet of Katana 450 UniKit . (http://www.neuronics.ch/cms_de/
mediabase/pdf_brochure/Neuronics_LinuxRobot_UniKit_EN.pdf)
[3] http://www.robotica.co.uk/robotica/ramc/products/robotic_arms/edub
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[35] KatanaNativeInterfaceReferenceManual,Version3.9.x.(http://www.ne
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[36] Universal Robots - Press photos. (http://www.universal-robots.com/
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[37] Manual for UR-6-85-5-A, version 1.2. (http://www.universal-
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[38] DataSheet of Modular robotic arm. (http://www.robotnik.es/ilsupload/
[9] http://www.adept.com/products/robots/6-axis/viper-s650/general 03_000221_09_es.pdf)
[10] http://www.motoman.com/products/robots/default.php [39] “From Research to Products:The Development of the KUKA Light-
[11] http://www.robots.epson.com/products/c3.htm Weight Robot”. R. Bischoff, 40th International Symposium on
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