PoWa 13

ABB launched the PoWa family from Zurich on 22 April 2026, and the PoWa 13 is the variant the whole announcement is built around. It is the first ABB robot in this catalogue — a late entry for a company that is one of the four largest industrial robot makers in the world and employs some 7,000 people in robotics alone. The headline is speed with load attached. The tool centre point reaches 5.8 m/s carrying the rated payload, and 8.3 m/s with a 1 kg load. In the standard ISO 9283 cycle of 400-900-400 mm that works out at 1.91 seconds under full load and 1.13 seconds light. For comparison, the fastest arm Universal Robots has built, the UR15 of 2025, tops out at 5 m/s. What makes the claim unusual is that speed did not cost precision. Pose repeatability is 0.03 mm and path repeatability 0.1 mm — tighter than the UR15's 0.05 mm, on an arm that moves faster. ABB states 32 percent better path repeatability than comparable cobots. The arm weighs 41 kg, stands on a 184 x 184 mm base, and mounts at any angle including wall and ceiling. Two things in the material deserve a careful read. First, the name understates the machine: ABB sells it as PoWa 13, but the data sheet rates it at up to 14 kg in the wrist-down configuration. Second, the marketing line 'fastest cobot on the market' carries an asterisk, and the footnote reads 'Speed of PoWa 10 and PoWa 13'. The family spans six payloads from 7 to 30 kg, but the record belongs to two of them; the larger CRB 1920 arms are a different machine under the same badge. The cleanroom rating follows the same pattern. ABB certifies ISO 14644-1 Class 4 — but only at 50 percent of rated speed. At full speed the arm is Class 5. This catalogue noted the identical construction on the UR15, where Class 4 requires holding to 80 percent; ABB's derating is the steeper of the two, which is the arithmetic consequence of a faster arm. The rest is industrial-grade plumbing. Sealing is IP65 on the body and IP67 at the wrist. Up to 88 N·m of torque suits screwdriving. Seven kilograms may rest on the lower arm and elbow together, which matters for cable-heavy tooling. The flange carries 24 V at 4 A total across four pins plus 8 digital inputs, 6 outputs, 4 analogue inputs and 100 Mbit Ethernet, so a gripper and a camera connect at once without external cable routing. Axes 1, 2 and 3 turn at 230°/s, the three wrist axes at 300°/s; axis 6 sweeps ±400°. Control is the compact OmniCore E10 — 12 kg, 445 x 340 x 89 mm — or the larger C30, with Wizard no-code block programming on the FlexPendant. Safety is certified to ISO 10218-1 and ISO 13849-1 PL d Cat 3, with Power and Force Limiting and Speed and Separation Monitoring for fenceless work. Noise stays below 60 dB(A) and the working range is 5 to 45°C. Specifications here follow ABB's PoWa CRB 1910 data sheet dated 27 May 2026. ABB sells through integrators and publishes no list price.

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Three cobots, three cleanroom ratings — and two of them come with an asterisk

9/6/2026 · ABB Robotics, Universal Robots, KUKA

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