UR16e

The UR16e arrived a year after the rest of the e-Series. Universal Robots announced it on 17 September 2019 with immediate availability, showed it publicly for the first time at the China International Industry Fair in Shanghai on 17-21 September 2019 and demonstrated it again at Pack Expo in Las Vegas the following week. It was then the strongest arm the company had ever built, and it stayed that way until the UR20 of 2022. What makes it interesting is what it shares with the UR10e rather than what it adds. Both arms stand on the same 190 mm footprint, weigh almost exactly the same - 33.1 kg against 33.5 kg with cable - and use the same joint speeds: 120 degrees per second at base and shoulder, 180 at elbow and the three wrist joints, all travelling +/-360 degrees with an unlimited tool flange. The difference is the length of the tubes between them. The UR16e trades 400 mm of reach for 3.5 kg of payload: 16 kg over 900 mm, against 12.5 kg over 1,300 mm. For a buyer, reach and lifting capacity cost the same weight and the same floor space, and the choice is made purely by the application. The extra payload does cost speed. Maximum tool centre point speed is 3 m/s, against 4 m/s on the UR10e and UR5e; only the tiny UR3e is as slow. Pose repeatability is +/-0.05 mm per ISO 9283, matching the UR10e and behind the +/-0.03 mm of the two smaller arms. At launch Universal Robots claimed this was the best pose repeatability available in its reach and payload class. The force-torque sensor in the tool flange has the widest range in the family: +/-160 N and +/-10 Nm, with a precision of +/-5.0 N and an accuracy of +/-5.5 N. That is what makes force-controlled work possible with heavy tooling, or with several parts handled at once - the application the manufacturer highlights for this model. Unlike the UR10e, the UR20 and the UR30, the UR16e has never had its payload rating raised after launch; the 16 kg it was announced with in 2019 is the 16 kg on today's data sheet. The arm is IP54 and rated for ISO Class 6 cleanrooms, works from 0 to 50 degrees Celsius at up to 90 percent non-condensing humidity, draws 585 W at maximum and around 350 W under moderate settings, and stays below 65 dB(A). Twenty-one configurable safety functions are certified to EN ISO 13849-1 PLd Category 3 and EN ISO 10218-1, and the M8 eight-pin tool connector carries two digital inputs, two digital outputs and two analogue inputs at 12 or 24 V. Universal Robots, founded in Odense and owned by Teradyne, sells through integrators and publishes no list price. Figures come from the manufacturer's technical data sheet of May 2025, its PolyScope 5 user manual and its launch release of September 2019.

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