Kassow Robots’ lineup of 7-axis collaborative robot arms now comes standard with three I/O ports and a free drive button. The Denmark-based company was launched in part by former Universal Robots Co-founder Kristian Kassow. The company had its coming out party at Automatica 2018.

Head of Sales Dieter Pletscher said the I/O ports will streamline integration of end-of-arm tools.

“All our cobots have three ports with various I/Os and power supply signals,” he said. “Two of the ports are for digital or analogue input/output. The third port and the free drive button are really special features.”

The third port enables a direct Data/Ethernet connection with the controller. “This way, our customers can, for example, connect camera solutions or Modbus TCP directly to the robot via the intelligent end-of-arm tool interface,” he said. “The cable consequently does not have to be led along the outside of the robot arm.”

Must-Read: Collaborative Robot Arms Buyer’s Guide

The free drive button allows users to teach the cobots certain waypoints by manually pushing them. This is commonly referred to as teaching by demonstration, and the individual positions are saved automatically. Pletscher said this “opens up a new realm of possibilities when programming the waypoints.”

Kassow Robots has three cobot arm in its lineup. See the chart below to compare the KR810, KR1205, and KR1805:

Kassow Robots Comparison

Each robot has built-in force torque sensors to detect impact and abnormal forces and stop the robots when they’re overloaded. The company claims its tablet-like user interface can be “operated by any staff member after a basic introduction.”

Gibson Engineering, a Norwood, Mass.-based industrial automation integrator, introduced Kassow Robots to the North American market during ATX East in June 2019. Our sister publication The Robot Report has more about the origin of Kassow Robots.