10 important developments in the field of robotics By shabbywabby 1954 The first digitally operated and programmable robot, was invented by George Devol This control system is electronic 1963 The Rancho Arm was developed as a robotic arm to help handicapped patients 1968 In the late-1960s the Vietnam War became the testing ground for automated command technology and sensor networks 1970 The development of humanoid robots was advanced considerably by Japanese robotics scientists 1974 Michael J. Freeman created Leachim, a robot teacher who was programmed with the class curricular 1979 The Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University was founded by Raj Reddy 1981 Takeo Kanade created the first "direct-drive arm" 1986 Honda began its humanoid research and development program to create robots capable of interacting successfully with humans 1996 Honda's P2 humanoid robot was first shown in 1996 2019 engineers at the University of Pennsylvania created millions of nanorobots in just a few weeks using technology borrowed from semiconductors