robotindex Kinova JACO
A carbon-fiber, six-axis arm with a three-finger hand from Kinova of Quebec, Canada, first introduced in 2009 as an arm that mounts on a wheelchair so users can feed themselves, and later sold as a research manipulator. It has 9 degrees of freedom counting the gripper: six in the arm plus three in the fingers. At about 5 kg with 90 cm of reach and a payload of roughly 1.6–2.6 kg, it was a widely used lab and assistive arm. Listed as discontinued.
Manufacturer page — kinovarobotics.com →
Image: Kinova (JACO six-axis arm with three-finger hand)
Specs
Degrees of Freedom
96-axis arm + 3-finger gripper
Payload
1.6–2.6 kgContinuous; 1.6 kg at 6 DOF per Kinova-linked sources
Reach
90 cm985 mm on Gen2 spherical-wrist and 7-DOF versions
Weight
~5.2 kg4.4–5.4 kg by source and version
Max Speed
20 cm/sLinear
Power
25 W avg100 W peak, 5 W standby, 24 V DC
Gripper
3-fingerUnderactuated; about 40 N grip force
Materials
Carbon fiberAluminum actuators, IPX2 weather resistance
Software
C++ API / ROSWindows and Linux; 100 Hz and 500 Hz control levels
Reference Price
Kinova does not publish a current price. Robots Guide lists the research version at $50,000 including a case, joystick, mounting kit, and software, which is an older reference figure. Resellers direct buyers to request a quote. Because the arm is listed here as discontinued, any remaining units are likely refurbished or second-hand. robotindex does not sell this product.
Insights
Kinova was founded in 2006 by Charles Deguire and Louis-Joseph L'Écuyer, inspired by a wheelchair-mounted manipulator an uncle had built, and introduced JACO in 2009. The arm was refreshed as JACO2 (also called Gen2), sold in 4-DOF and 6-DOF versions and later 7-DOF with a spherical wrist, with two- or three-finger grippers. Kinova's newer Gen3 line is its research and development platform, and sources describe it as separate from JACO rather than a direct successor. This page is marked Discontinued by the site editor; no Kinova end-of-life notice was found, some sources still list the JACO or Gen2 as available, and Kinova still markets JACO as an assistive arm, so the status may apply to a specific generation. A US FDA Class I correction for fire and burn risk applied to some JACO units. Hobbyists will find JACO's price and age out of reach; it remains common in university labs. The Open Source badge does not apply: the arm is proprietary, though it works with ROS.
Verified against Kinova's JACO product page (kinovarobotics.com), retailer listings (Clearpath/Rockwell, Top3DShop), Wikipedia's Kinova entry, and spec summaries (Robots Guide, Anton Robots, Robots in Search, Wevolver), as of October 2026. Flagged as uncertain: the discontinued status is the site editor's designation and could not be confirmed from Kinova, since a 2026 review still describes JACO as an active assistive product and Top3DShop and Clearpath still list the Gen2 arm; Kinova's product page returned no specifications when fetched; payload is 1.6 kg continuous at 6 DOF in some sources and 2.6 kg on the Gen2 research listing, weight ranges from 4.4 to 5.7 kg and reach is 900 mm or 985 mm depending on version; the 9 DoF figure is Robots Guide's count of six arm joints plus three finger joints; the $50,000 price is from that single source and is dated. The Class I correction is from one review and was not checked against the FDA record. The image shows the six-axis arm with a three-finger hand and Kinova's logo on the base, consistent with the JACO line; the exact generation is not identified. Product image: Kinova. The image already had a white background.