Research Robots

Buying advice

Discontinued arms on a research budget

On a check in October 2026, prices shown here started near $250 with the NVIDIA JetBot and climbed to near $29,000 with the Sawyer, and every listing had a published price. Discontinued does not mean useless for research, but it changes the risk you carry. Before buying either, ask who now supplies spare parts and software updates, whether licences transfer to a new owner, and how long the seller will support the unit. Put the same support questions to Kinova about the Gen3 so that you compare like with like. Write the answers into your equipment plan so the next cohort knows what to expect.

Collaborative does not mean risk-free

Collaborative arms are often bought on the assumption that students can work right beside them. ISO/TS 15066:2016 sets out how collaborative operation should be assessed, and ISO 10218-1:2025 covers the safety requirements for the industrial robot itself, but neither replaces a risk assessment of your actual task, tooling and room layout. A gripper with a sharp edge or a fast pick-and-place routine can change the picture entirely. Ask the maker which parts of those standards its arm has been assessed against, and agree with your safety officer which experiments need reduced speeds, guarding or direct supervision.

Fleets, custom rigs and the machinery rules

When a teaching lab runs several units of TurtleBot 3, TurtleBot 4, the Pioneer 3-DX or NVIDIA JetBot, plan around the fleet: charging points, floor space for test runs, and a way to label which robot carries which modifications. If your group builds a custom rig from an arm, a base and its own tooling, note that Regulation (EU) 2023/1230 on machinery excludes machinery specially built for research and used temporarily in laboratories. Check whether that exclusion still covers the rig once it travels to a partner site or a public demonstration, and involve your institution's safety office early, because conformity work is slow to retrofit.

What to look for

• ROS support, and the maturity of its drivers and simulation models
• Payload, reach and degrees of freedom for manipulation work
• Open interfaces for adding sensors, compute and custom tooling

Common questions

Why do research labs favour ROS-compatible robots?

ROS gives labs shared tools, drivers and simulation, so work can be reproduced and built upon across groups. A platform with mature ROS support usually means less time spent on integration.

Can a research robot also serve teaching labs?

Often, yes. Lower-cost mobile platforms suit large cohorts, while a single arm or mobile base can anchor advanced modules and student projects. Request a quote for several units if you're equipping a lab.

Sources and further reading

• ISO 10218-1:2025 Robotics, safety requirements, Part 1: Industrial robots — International Organization for Standardization (ISO).
  Current ISO safety requirements for industrial robots, the baseline for robot arms used in university labs.
• ISO/TS 15066:2016 Robots and robotic devices, collaborative robots — International Organization for Standardization (ISO).
  Technical specification on assessing collaborative robot operation where people and arms share a workspace.
• Regulation (EU) 2023/1230 on machinery — European Union (EUR-Lex).
  EU machinery law replacing Directive 2006/42/EC, with an exclusion for some temporary laboratory research machinery.