Interview With Mr. Pradeep David

General Manager, Universal Robots, India And Sri Lanka

1. Give us a brief background of Universal Robots.

In 2003, the three founders of the company, Esben Østergaard, Kasper Støy and Kristian Kassow, together came up with the idea of creating a light robot that is easy to install and program as they could see that heavy, expensive and unwieldy robots were dominating robotics and there was a huge market for a user-friendly option. In 2005, they officially founded Universal Robots, with the aim of making robot technology accessible to small and medium-sized enterprises. An investment by Syddansk Innovation shaped the foundation of the company.

In 2008, the company sold its first product through distributers in Denmark and Germany. Universal Robots’ first product was the UR5, a six jointed articulated robotic arm that revolutionized the market for industrial robots. The UR5 weighs 18 kg, has a lifting capacity of up to 5 kg and a working radius of 85 cm. Within a year the company expanded its business in the entire European markets.

In 2011, Universal Robots entered the Asian market with an office in China and in next two years, they established subsidiaries, in New York, Shanghai and, also established a distributor network in South America and Oceania.

The second product UR 10 was also launched at the same time. It was targeted towards larger tasks with a lifting ability of 10 kg and a reach of 130 cm. In 2015, the company witnessed the launch of world’s most flexible, lightweight table-top robot UR3, to work alongside humans, which has a payload capacity of 3 kilos which can be used for light assembly tasks and automated workbench scenarios.

The company is a part of Teradyne Inc., headquartered in Odense, Denmark. UR has subsidiaries and regional offices in the USA, Spain, Germany, Italy, Czech Republic, China, Singapore, India, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea.