Universal Robots (UR) is the market leader in collaborative robot arms (called cobots) targeting companies of all sizes. Their easy-to-use and cost-efficient UR3, UR5, UR10, UR 16, and UR e-series models are deployed in several thousand production environments around the world today—in key factory automation applications such as pick-and-place, quality inspection, and packaging and palletizing.

Previously, LMI Technologies’ UR certification applied to Gocator® 3D snapshot sensors, which use blue-LED stereo structured light technology to measure shape and orientation of parts for automating inspection, part movement, and guidance type applications.

Now, Gocator® Smart 3D Laser Line Profile Sensors have received their own certification for integration with UR cobots to deliver a smart 3D robot vision solution for applications such as measurement and inspection of elongated targets (e.g., cables, pipes, and conduits); applications that require larger fields of view not covered by Gocator® 3D snapshot sensors (such as large scale bin picking); and a wide range of vision guidance, flexible quality inspection, and smart pick-and-place applications.

Easy UR integration with Gocator® 3D laser profilers allows production engineers to get a complete vision-guided robotic solution up and running with minimal cost and development time.

Users are able to easily integrate both Gocator® 3D Laser Profilers and Gocator® 3D Snapshot Sensors into applications using UR devices with support provided by the Gocator® URCap plugin. The plugin allows engineers to connect to a robot controller or PC application to perform sensor hand-eye calibration and implement pick-and-place movement. There is no need for additional programming, making it easy to set up robotic systems for factory automation applications.

“UR and LMI share a common goal of building cost-effective, easy-to-use 3D solutions that drive greater industrial automation for markets around the globe. Connecting Gocator® smart sensors to UR’s industry-leading line of robots is a powerful approach to providing customers with machine vision-enabled industrial robot systems that can perform a range of tasks that would not be possible for either technology on its own. We are grateful to be able to continue to develop our partnership with UR by adding our popular 3D laser line profiler family to their roster of certified vision technologies,” said Mark Radford, CEO of LMI Technologies.