The first real success story for Industrial Automation, the R2 was superior to the P2 and R1 in every way, smarter, faster, and more agile. The R2 was designed to fit the astromech droid sockets on military starfighters, which had previously been reserved exclusively for government owned models. The R2 was preprogrammed to be able to interface with over 700 different types of starships. Although starship repair and diagnosis was the R2's primary function, they were also used for data retrieval and as general utility droids.
The R2 can store up to 10 different sets of hyperspace coordinates and can perform basic flight maneuvers including engine startup and peflight taxiing.
The R2 featured an extensive sensor package and variety of built in tools, including an arc welder, fire extinguisher, holoprojector, circular saw, and two extending arms each for heavy lifting and precision work. These features, along with the shape and size of the R2's body, would be become the signatures of the IA astro droid, and would be reused in each successive R-series droid.
The different models of R-series droids from the R2 on can be distinguished by the shape and style of their head cupola. R2s have a hemispherical metalic head.
