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Articulated arms

The familiar jointed arm — rotary joints in a chain from base to wrist — from a desktop teaching kit to a welding cell.

  • 6-axis arm
  • 7-axis arm
  • cobot
  • collaborative robot
  • desktop arm
  • anthropomorphic arm

What it is

An articulated arm is a series of rotary joints, each link turning on the one before it, like a shoulder, elbow and wrist. Six joints let the tool reach any position at any angle; a seventh, as on the Franka Research 3, lets it get there around an obstacle. The design trades stiffness and speed for reach: a chain of joints flexes more than a SCARA or gantry, but it works around things no other geometry can.

Also called a 6-axis arm, 7-axis arm, cobot or desktop arm. The only test here is three or more rotary joints in series. "Industrial robot" versus "cobot" is not a split in this taxonomy: a cobot like the UR5e and a fenced arm are the same category; the safety rating is the collaborative attribute.

What they are used for

  • Machine tending and assembly — loading CNC machines, screwdriving and small-part assembly with cobots such as the FANUC CRX-10iA.
  • Palletising and heavy handling — end-of-line stacking with higher-payload cobots like the Doosan H2515.
  • Physical-AI research — torque-controlled or low-cost arms (Franka Research 3, SO-ARM101) collecting demonstrations and running learned policies.
  • Education — desktop arms such as the myCobot 280 teaching kinematics, vision and ROS.
  • Surgery — teleoperated multi-arm systems like the da Vinci 5, driven from a console.

What to compare

Attribute Why it matters In this catalogue
payload What it lifts at the wrist, gripper included; grams on a desktop, tens of kilograms in a cell 0.25 kg (Elephant Robotics myCobot 280) – 25 kg (Doosan Robotics H2515)
reach Radius from the base; decides table size and cell layout 280 mm (Elephant Robotics myCobot 280) – 1750 mm (Universal Robots UR20)
repeatability Industrial arms hold a fraction of a millimetre; hobby bus-servo arms are far looser 0.02 mm (ABB Robotics GoFa CRB 15000) – 1 mm (Trossen Robotics WidowX AI)
axes Six reaches any pose; seven adds redundancy; four is enough for planar pick-and-place 4 (DOBOT MG400) – 7 (Kinova Gen3)
collaborative Fenceless operation beside people; needs force limiting or separation monitoring certified to ISO/TS 15066 yes: Elite Robots CS66, FAIRINO FR5, Techman Robot TM AI Cobot S Series, Universal Robots UR20, Universal Robots UR5e
sdk Pendant-only, or Python, C++ and ROS access for your own code ros1 (9), python (8), ros2 (8), cpp (7), proprietary (2)
mounting Table, floor, ceiling or a mobile base table (16), floor (7), wall (7), ceiling (7)
ip_rating Washdown and machine-tool coolant need sealed joints 16 entries

Price picture (observed 2026-10-28)

  • Professional / industrial: USD 3,495 (DOBOT MG400) to EUR 50,400 (Doosan Robotics H2515).
  • Research: USD 278 (Seeed Studio SO-ARM101) to USD 33,500 (Kinova Gen3).
  • On quotation: Dobot Magician, Dobot Magician E6, FANUC CRX-10iA, Franka Research 3, Intuitive da Vinci 5, JAKA Zu 7, Techman Robot TM AI Cobot S Series, Universal Robots UR20, Universal Robots UR5e.

Prices are the latest observation per product, in the seller's currency; see each record's offers for history and VAT notes.

In the catalogue

Professional / industrial: ABB Robotics GoFa CRB 15000 · AgileX Robotics PiPER · AUBO i5 · DOBOT CR5A · DOBOT MG400 · Doosan Robotics H2515 · Elite Robots CS66 · FAIRINO FR5 · FANUC CRX-10iA · Intuitive da Vinci 5 · JAKA Zu 7 · KUKA LBR iisy · RealMan Robotics RM65-B · Techman Robot TM AI Cobot S Series · Universal Robots UR20 · Universal Robots UR5e
Research: Elephant Robotics myCobot 280 · Elephant Robotics myCobot 320 · Franka Research 3 · Kinova Gen3 · ROBOTIS OpenMANIPULATOR-X · Seeed Studio reBot Arm B601 · Seeed Studio SO-ARM101 · Trossen Robotics WidowX AI · Unitree Z1
Education, hobby & consumer: Dobot Magician · Dobot Magician E6

Edge cases

  • Cobots (UR5e, FAIRINO FR5): articulated arms with collaborative: true; nothing else separates them.
  • Four-axis desktop arms (DOBOT MG400): rotary joints in series, so articulated — not SCARA, which needs a slide.
  • Seven-axis arms (Kinova Gen3): same category; axes: 7.
  • Leader-follower kits (SO-ARM101): the follower is the robot; a leader alone is a Teleoperation component.

Related

Arm · SCARA arm · Parallel arm · Cartesian arm · Cylindrical & spherical arm · Mobile manipulator · Gripper · Teleoperation

Rule of membership

At least three rotary joints in series. Collaborative safety rating does not change the category (attribute collaborative).

Category rb-1-1 in the whatrobot taxonomy.