Franka Research 3

Research labs are the buyers Franka Robotics built this arm for. The company calls the Franka Research 3 a reference platform for robotics and AI, and says it is engineered and manufactured in Germany. Each of its seven joints carries a torque sensor, so the arm can estimate external contact forces, react to collisions and be guided by hand.

Low-level access for researchers

The Franka Control Interface gives direct control of the arm without internal transformation, covering position, velocity and torque in joint space and position and velocity in Cartesian space. Franka says internal supervision only prevents self-damage. System state data from sensors and models can be captured at 1 kHz, along with external force estimation.

Researchers can work in C++, ROS 2 or MATLAB and Simulink, and Franka lists MuJoCo support from its community for simulation. For simpler jobs there is a graphical programming interface for setting up tasks.

Updates after purchase

Franka says the arm and its software keep developing through free over-the-air updates. System Image 5.10 exposes accelerometer data from the joint-mounted sensors through libfranka. Version 5.9 added joint-level jogging from the Desk sidebar and asynchronous joint-position updates in the control interface, and 5.8 brought an API for operating the arm from code and torque sensor recalibration in the field.

Key facts

Maker: Franka Robotics Built for: robotics and AI research Payload: 3 kg Reach: 855 mm Degrees of freedom: 7 Integrated torque sensors: 7 Position repeatability: under 0.1 mm either way Workspace efficiency: 94.5% Control rate: 1 kHz Price: not published on the product page (read 8 November 2026)