Franka Research 3

Quote onlyNo public list price. The predecessor Panda was pre-ordered at €9,900 in 2016. The earliest FR3 datasheet found is release 1.1 from August 2022, consistent with the 2022 launch year.

AvailablePython from a laptop7-DOFJoint torque sensors1 kHz FCIResearch standard

Weeks+Shipping: Quote and lead time. Sold through Franka Robotics and its sales partners on quotation.

Remote control: pylibfranka or franka_ros2 on a Linux laptop with a real-time kernel connected by Ethernet. A Mac can use the Desk web UI and Desk API but not the 1 kHz FCI directly.

Official page ↗FCI docs ↗franka_ros2 ↗Agile Robots (Wikipedia) ↗

Overview

The successor to the Panda and today's reference arm for robot-learning research, with seven torque-sensed joints, 1 kHz low-level control and a huge base of published code and datasets. Franka Emika filed for insolvency in 2023 and was acquired by Agile Robots in November 2023. The company continues as Franka Robotics and has since added dual-arm, mobile and GELLO teleoperation kits.

The default choice for manipulation research that needs torque control and reproducibility with published work.

Specifications

Category	Robot arms · Research & collaborative arms
Released	2022
Country	Germany
Availability	Available
Sales	1,000 produced by February 2025 Agile Robots ↗
Programmability	Full SDK
Built-in autonomy	None / scripted · Moves only when controlled, or plays preset motions
Best for	Professionals & labs
Vision sensors	No vision sensors
Actuators	Brushless / direct-drive motors
Audio	No audio
Compute type	Proprietary / undisclosed
Remote control	Python from a laptop
DOF	7
Reach	855 mm
Payload	3 kg
Repeatability	<±0.1 mm
Weight	About 18.3 kg arm (about 17.8 kg in the 2022 datasheet), control box about 7 kg
Controller	External Control unit, Desk web UI, Franka Control Interface (FCI) streams 1 kHz commands over Ethernet
Sensors	Torque sensors in all 7 joints, joint accelerometer data exposed since System Image 5.10
SDK	libfranka (C++), pylibfranka (Python), franka_ros2, Desk API, MATLAB, MuJoCo models from the community