With the upcoming Robotiq ActiveDrive launch on UR robots, it's interesting to define the differences with their actual Freedrive mode.

Freedrive

This is the built-in mode of UR robots (when you press the button behind the touchpad). It allows you to move the robot joints by hand in order to give the robot the position you want. You simply have to apply a force by hand on any of the joints to make the robot move. The freedrive mode requires to apply higher torques on the joints to back-drive all the servomotors. This means that you need to overcome the motors striction in order for them to start helping the movement. Hence, the ease of use and precision is not easy to get.

ActiveDrive

This mode comes with the use of a Robotiq F/T sensor. The ActiveDrive mode simply works with the external forces applied on the Robotiq F/T sensor to fully control the robot. In order to move the robot, You must grab it's end-effector as the forces need to be apply on the sensor. So in this mode, the servo-motors are powered by ActiveDrive sofware to offer better hand guiding performances and added features like a scara, a translation and a plane mode. This allow smoother movements of the robot and better precision when it comes to positioning it with only 1 hand.