Franka Robotics

Franka Robotics is a German robotics company founded in 2016 and headquartered in Munich; it became part of Agile Robots in 2023 while keeping its own brand and product line. It serves research labs, AI teams and manufacturers that need a force-sensitive robot arm for experimentation, manipulation research and light industrial tasks.

Its core product, Franka Research 3, is a torque-controlled arm with integrated force sensing at every joint, exposed through open APIs and ROS support so teams can program custom manipulation and learning algorithms. Variants such as the Mobile FR3 Duo and Tactile Mobile Robot extend the platform to mobile manipulation, and users include Meta, Toyota Research Institute and MIT.

1. Franka Research 3 arm: torque-controlled robot with force/torque sensing at every joint.

2. Open programming interface: APIs and ROS support let teams build custom control and learning software.

3. Mobile platform variants: Mobile FR3 Duo and Tactile Mobile Robot extend the arm to mobile manipulation.

4. GELLO teleoperation: hardware and software kit for collecting demonstration data to train robot policies.

5. Research-grade precision: fine force control suited to delicate manipulation and assembly experiments.

6. Academic and industry adoption: used by labs and companies including Meta, Toyota Research Institute and MIT.