# Universal Robots

**Canonical:** https://apis.io/providers/universal-robots/  
**Website:** https://www.universal-robots.com/  
**APIs profiled:** 7

Universal Robots is a Danish collaborative-robot (cobot) manufacturer headquartered in Odense, Denmark, founded in 2005 by Esben Østergaard, Kasper Støy, and Kristian Kassow, and acquired by Teradyne in 2015 for USD 285 million. Universal Robots is the market leader in cobots, with more than 100,000 units sold worldwide and a 40–50% share of the global collaborative-robot market. The company ships two product generations — the e-Series (UR3e, UR7e, UR12e, UR16e) and the newer high-payload UR series (UR8 Long, UR15, UR18, UR20, UR30) — running the PolyScope 5 teach-pendant software stack and the next-generation PolyScope X platform. Universal Robots is unusual among industrial-robot vendors in publishing an extensive open developer surface: the C++ Universal_Robots_Client_Library, the Universal_Robots_ROS_Driver and Universal_Robots_ROS2_Driver, the RTDE Python Client Library, the Universal_Robots_Isaac_Driver for NVIDIA Isaac, the URCap SDK (PolyScope 5 Java) and PolyScopeX URCap SDK (TypeScript/HTML), and the URScript language. The wire-level protocols — Real-Time Data Exchange (RTDE), Dashboard Server, Primary/Secondary Client Interface, Reverse/Trajectory interfaces, XML-RPC, and the Tool Communication forwarder — are all documented and externally addressable over TCP, making UR cobots first-class citizens in third-party automation stacks, ROS/ROS 2, MoveIt, Isaac Sim, and the UR+ ecosystem (500+ certified end-effectors, vision systems, and URCap software extensions on universal-robots.com/plus). Universal Robots does not publish a public HTTP/REST API or OpenAPI specification — all programmatic access is via the documented socket protocols and SDKs.

## Kin Score — 13.9 / 100 (emerging)

Scored 2026-08-20 under rubric 0.12.0. Trend: flat (+0.0 from 13.9).

| Facet | Score |
|---|---|
| Discoverability | 64.8 |
| Contract Quality | 15.5 |
| Governance | 0.0 |
| Contract Governance | 0.0 |
| Operational Transparency | 5.3 |
| Developer Ergonomics | 14.3 |
| Commercial Clarity | 0.0 |
| Access Clarity | 0.0 |

## Agent readiness — 0.0 (human-only)

| Dimension | Value |
|---|---|
| Spec Presence | no |
| Agentic Access | no |
| Reversibility Documented | no |
| MCP Server | no |
| Auth Clarity | no |
| Idempotency | no |
| Error Semantics | no |
| OpenAPI Examples | no |
| Rate Limit Signal | no |
| Event Surface Described | no |
| Agent Skills | no |
| Well Known Catalog | no |
| Consent Identity | no |
| Agent Card | no |
| Dry Run Mode | no |

## Access

Unknown — onboarding: unknown, pricing: unknown, trial: no (confidence: low).

## APIs (7)

- **Universal Robots Real-Time Data Exchange (RTDE)** — Real-Time Data Exchange is Universal Robots' synchronous binary TCP protocol on port 30004 that lets external applications stream robot state at the controller's 500 Hz cycle (e...
- **Universal Robots Dashboard Server** — Plain-text TCP command interface on port 29999 used to power on/off the robot, load and play programs, query safety state, and manage installations. Dashboard Server is the easi...
- **Universal Robots Primary and Secondary Client Interface** — Streaming binary interface on ports 30001 (Primary, 10 Hz) and 30002 (Secondary, 10 Hz) that emits robot state and configuration messages and accepts URScript programs and comma...
- **URScript** — URScript is Universal Robots' purpose-built scripting language for cobot motion, I/O, and process control. URScript programs can be authored in PolyScope, streamed over the Seco...
- **URCap SDK (PolyScope 5)** — The URCap SDK is the Java-based extension framework for PolyScope 5 that powers Universal Robots' UR+ ecosystem. URCaps add program nodes, installation screens, daemons, and dri...
- **PolyScope X URCap SDK** — The PolyScope X URCap SDK is the TypeScript/HTML extension framework for Universal Robots' next-generation PolyScope X teach-pendant operating system that ships on UR15/UR20/UR3...
- **Universal Robots Real-Time Interface** — Binary state interface on port 30003 emitting robot state at the 125 Hz / 500 Hz controller cycle. Predates RTDE and is still supported for low-latency one-way state streaming; ...

## Security (1)

- **Universal Robots Domain Security** — TLSv1.3 · HSTS · DNSSEC · DMARC

## Tags

Robotics, Collaborative Robots, Cobots, Industrial Automation, Manufacturing, PolyScope, PolyScopeX, URCaps, URScript, RTDE, ROS, ROS 2, Teradyne, Danish, Hardware

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Profiled by [API Evangelist](https://apievangelist.com) and published on [APIs.io](https://apis.io/providers/universal-robots/). Scores are computed from the provider's own public artifacts under a published rubric.