Based on contributions by Jasonbrowne.
Safety planes are virtual boundaries that stop the robot from entering a defined area — useful when the robot works in a confined space or near a person and needs a hard physical limit it cannot cross.
What you need
- A Universal Robot with PolyScope and access to the Installation tab’s Safety settings.
- Up to 8 safety planes can be configured.
Steps
- Go to Installation → Features and set up the planes and/or points/coordinates you want to use as limits (e.g. top, left, right, front).
- Go to Installation → Safety → Planes.
- Add a plane (you can add up to 8).
- Open the plane’s Properties:
- give it a logical name,
- select the coordinate you created in step 1 from the Copy Feature dropdown,
- choose the restriction type: Normal and/or Reduced.
- Repeat steps 3–4 for every safety plane you need.
- Adjust the plane’s displacement if needed, then confirm the parameters.
Configured safety planes stop the robot from breaching the set limits, or switch it into a reduced safety mode as configured. For the full reference, see the Universal Robots guide to setting up safety boundaries.
Related
- How to set the payload and center of gravity on a UR e-Series robot — payload/CoG settings are configured in the same Installation tab.
- How to install and control a Robotiq gripper on a UR robot — mounting a gripper changes the robot’s reach, which may require adjusting your safety planes.
Rewritten and consolidated (Sept 2026) from the original student how-to’s: How to Add Safety Planes to a Universal Robot.