UR5e

The UR5e is the direct descendant of the arm that created the collaborative robot market. Universal Robots showed the e-Series at the automatica fair in Munich on 19 June 2018, began shipping on 1 August 2018 and gave the line its American debut at IMTS in Chicago that September; the UR5e replaced the UR5 of the CB3 generation, which had been in the field since 2008. It is the middle size in every sense: 5 kg of payload, 850 mm of reach, 20.6 kg of arm weight with the cable, and a footprint 151 mm across. Maximum tool centre point speed is 4 m/s, and all six joints turn +/-360 degrees at up to 180 degrees per second, with the tool flange rotating without limit. Pose repeatability is +/-0.03 mm per ISO 9283. Only the smaller UR3e matches that; the heavier UR10e and UR16e, and even the UR15 introduced in 2025, are rated at +/-0.05 mm. Anyone whose application is about placing a part precisely rather than lifting a heavy one is best served by one of the two oldest arms in the range. The cleanroom rating is the second surprise. Universal Robots certifies the UR5e arm to ISO Class 5, while the UR10e and UR16e arms reach only ISO Class 6; the control box is Class 6 in every case. Cleanliness in this family goes down as the arm gets bigger, which is the opposite of the pattern seen at KUKA, where cleanroom variants exist only for the largest models. For semiconductor and laboratory work the UR5e is not a compromise choice but the top of the range. The force-torque sensor built into the tool flange measures +/-50 N and +/-10 Nm with an accuracy of +/-4.0 N, giving force-controlled sanding, polishing, deburring and assembly without extra hardware. The arm is IP54, works from 0 to 50 degrees Celsius at up to 90 percent non-condensing humidity, and draws 570 W at maximum, about 200 W under moderate settings. It is, curiously, the loudest arm in the family at under 67 dB(A), where the much larger UR10e and UR16e stay under 65 and the little UR3e under 60. Twenty-one configurable safety functions are certified to EN ISO 13849-1 PLd Category 3 and EN ISO 10218-1. The M8 eight-pin tool connector carries two digital inputs, two digital outputs and either two analogue inputs or one RS-485 line 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 and from the cleanroom and noise tables in its own PolyScope 5 user manual.

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