UR3e
Universal Robots · Denmark · 2018
The smallest arm Universal Robots sells: 3 kg of payload on a base the size of a saucer. It is also the only one in the family whose three wrist joints spin twice as fast as everything else, which is why it ends up doing screwdriving rather than lifting.
The UR3e is the entry point of the e-Series, the generation Universal Robots showed at the automatica fair in Munich on 19 June 2018 and began shipping on 1 August 2018, with an American debut at IMTS in Chicago that September. It replaced the UR3 of the previous CB3 line and kept its defining idea: an arm small enough to sit on the same bench as the person using it. The numbers are modest by design. Payload is 3 kg, reach 500 mm, the arm weighs 11.2 kg with its cable and stands on a footprint 128 mm across, so a single technician can move it between workstations. Maximum tool centre point speed is 3 m/s and pose repeatability is +/-0.03 mm per ISO 9283. That repeatability figure deserves attention, because it is the best Universal Robots publishes for any of its arms. The UR3e and the UR5e are rated at 30 micrometres; the larger UR10e and UR16e at 50, and so is the UR15 launched in 2025. The oldest and smallest machine in the catalogue is still the most accurate one the company offers. The second thing that separates the UR3e from its siblings is hidden in the joint table. All six joints turn +/-360 degrees and the tool flange rotates without limit, but where the bigger arms cap every joint at 180 degrees per second, the UR3e runs its three wrist joints at 360 degrees per second. This is an arm built to twist, not to carry: screwdriving, small-part assembly, laboratory pipetting and bench-top machine tending are what the extra wrist speed buys. The rest is standard e-Series equipment. A force-torque sensor sits in the tool flange with a range of +/-30 N and +/-10 Nm, accurate to +/-3.5 N, which is what allows force-controlled work such as polishing or press-fitting without an add-on sensor. The arm is rated IP54, runs from 0 to 50 degrees Celsius at up to 90 percent non-condensing humidity, draws 300 W at maximum and around 150 W under moderate settings, and is quieter than any other model in the family at under 60 dB(A). Twenty-one configurable safety functions are certified to EN ISO 13849-1 PLd Category 3 and EN ISO 10218-1. The tool flange carries an M8 eight-pin connector with two digital inputs, two digital outputs and two analogue inputs at 12 or 24 V. Universal Robots, founded in Odense and owned by Teradyne since 2015, sells through integrators and publishes no list price. All figures here come from the manufacturer's own technical data sheet, revision of May 2025.
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