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The Greek myths of Hephaestus and Pygmalion incorporate the idea of intelligent mechanisms.
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The Egyptians invent the idea of thinking “machines”: their
advice-giving oracles are statues with priests hidden inside. -
The Babylonians develop the water clock, considered one of the
first robotic devices. -
Automata appear in Homer's Iliad.
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Chinese engineer King-Shu Tse designs a mechanical bird and horse.
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Greek mathematician Archytas of Tarentum constructs a mechanical wooden bird whose movements are controlled by a jet of steam or compressed air.
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Greek inventor and physicist Ctesibus of Alexandria designs water
clocks with movable figures. -
Chinese artisans develop elaborate automata.
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Egyptian inventor Hero of Alexandria designs various automata for
theater and temple use and details the workings of his automatic
devices in his work Automata. -
Chinese engineer Liang Lingzan and Buddhist monk Yi Xing build a
water-driven device with the world's first clockwork escapement
mechanism – the first true mechanical clock. -
Arabic engineer Al-Jazari writes The book of knowledge of
ingenious mechanical devices, which describes in detail fifty
devices, including an automated girl who poured drinks and a “
robot band” of four automated musicians. -
Automated carillons appear in the Netherlands.
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Italian artist and inventor Leonardo da Vinci designs an
artificial man in the form of an armored Germanic knight, the
first humanoid robot in Western civilization. -
German scholar Hans Bullmann designs and builds humanoid androids who play musical instruments.
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Czech Rabbi Judah Loew of Prague is said to have brought to life a
clay man known as the Golem to defend the Jews of Prague from
anti-Semitic attacks. -
Mechanized puppets known as “Karakuri Ningyo” appear in Japan,
typically designed to perform a single task such as serving tea or
writing calligraphy. -
A mechanical theatre featuring 119 animated figures that perform a
play to the accompaniment of a water-powered organ is built at the
Heilbrunn chateau in Germany. -
German philosopher and alchemist Albertus Magnus coins the word
"android.” -
French inventor Jacques Vaucanson creates several robotic beings, including a human-sized android flutist and an automatic duck that simulates quacking, drinking, eating, paddling in water, digesting and excreting.
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German inventor Friedrich von Knauss creates an android able to
hold a pen and write a piece of up to 107 words. -
Swiss inventors Pierre and Henry Louis Jaquet-Droz create various
automatons, including one that draws four pre-programmed pictures. -
French inventor Joseph Jacquard builds an automated loom that is
controlled with punch cards. -
English author Mary Shelley writes Frankenstein, about an
artificial man created by Dr. Frankenstein. -
English mathematician Charles Babbage demonstrates a prototype of his "Difference Engine" to the Royal Astronomical Society.
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Charles Babbage begins work on his “Analytical Engine”, one of
the first computational machines. -
English mathematician George Boole invents a symbolic logic (now
called Boolean logic) that would become basic to the design of
digital computer circuits. -
Serbian-American inventor Nikola Tesla develops the first
alternating-current induction motor. -
Nikola Tesla creates the first remote-controlled vehicles.
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American engineer Seward Babbitt designs a motorized (but not
robotic) crane to remove ingots from a furnace. -
Czech author Karel Capek coins the word “robot” to describe
mechanical people in his play "R.U.R" (Rossum's Universal Robots). -
The film Metropolis features the first movie robot, “Maria.”
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British mathematician and computer scientist Alan Turing completes
his seminal paper On Computable Numbers and introduces the concept of a theoretical computer called the Turing Machine. -
American engineers Willard Pollard and Harold Roselund design a
programmable paint-spraying mechanism. -
Elektro, a 7-foot-tall, 260-pound mechanical man built by
Westinghouse, appears at the New York World's Fair. ELEKTRO walks, talks and smokes. -
American author Isaac Asimov popularizes the term "robotics" and
sets out his “three laws of robotics” in his story "Runaround." -
American physicists John Vincent Atanasoff and Clifford Berry
design the Atanasoff Berry Computer (ABC), the first electronic
digital computer to perform numerical calculations digitally. -
American scientists Warren McCulloch and Walter Pitts do
pioneering work on neural networks. -
Colossus, the world's first large-scale programmable electronic
digital computer, is built in Britain by a team of mathematicians,
electrical engineers and intelligence agents to crack Nazi codes. -
American physicist John Mauchly and American engineer J. Presper Eckert create ENIAC (Electronic Numerical Integrator And
Computer), the first American electronic digital computer, to run
ballistics calculations for the United States Army. -
American engineer George Devol patents a playback device for
controlling machines, using magnetic recording. -
Whirlwind, the first general-purpose digital computer able to
operate in real time, solves its first problem at MIT. -
MIT professor Norbert Wiener publishes Cybernetics or Control and Communication in the Animal, a book which describes the concept of communications and control in electronic, mechanical and biological systems. British roboticist William Grey Walter creates autonomous machines called Elmer and Elsie that mimic lifelike behavior with very simple circuitry.
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Alan Turing proposes a test to determine whether or not a machine has gained the power to think for itself. It becomes known as the
"Turing Test". -
American engineer Raymond Goertz designs the ElectroMechanical Manipulator, the first remotely-controlled articulated arm, for
the Atomic Energy Commission. UNIVAC (Universal Automatic Computer), the world’s first
commercially available computer, is designed by ENIAC creators
Eckert and Mauchly. The first UNIVAC came online for the U.S.
Government's Census Bureau. The first commercial customer to
purchase a UNIVAC was the Prudential Insurance Company. -
The first NC (numerically controlled) machine is built at MIT.
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American engineers George Devol and Joe Engelberger design the first programmable robot "arm," the world's first industrial
robot. -
American researchers Allen Newell, Herbert Simon and John Shaw create the Logic Theorist, the first artificial intelligence
program. George Devol and Joseph Engelberger form the world's first robot company: Unimation, Inc. -
The Servomechanisms Laboratory at MIT demonstrates one of the
first practical applications of computer-assisted manufacturing. -
Researchers John McCarthy and Marvin Minsky start the Artificial
Intelligence Laboratory at MIT. -
Unimation is purchased by Condec Corporation and the development of Unimate Robot Systems begins. American Machine and Foundry, later known as AMF Corporation,
markets the first cylindrical robot, called the Versatran. -
MIT researcher Heinrich Ernst develops the MH-1, a computer operated mechanical hand.
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The first Unimate robot is installed in a General Motors plant in
Trenton, New Jersey. The assembly line spot welding robot is
controlled step-by-step by commands stored on a magnetic drum. -
The first computer-controlled robotic arm is designed at Rancho
Los Amigos Hospital in Downey, California as a tool for the
handicapped. -
Artificial intelligence research laboratories are opened at MIT,
Stanford Research Institute (SRI), Stanford University and the
University of Edinburgh -
Carnegie Mellon University establishes the Robotics Institute. Stanford University researchers Edward Feigenbaum and Joshua
Lederberg create DENDRAL, the first expert system designed to
execute the accumulated knowledge of subject experts. -
An artificial intelligence program named ELIZA is created at MIT
by Joseph Weizenbaum. ELIZA functions as a computer
“psychologist” that manipulates its users’ statements to form
questions. The Stanford Research Institute creates Shakey, the first mobile
robot that can reason about its surroundings. -
MIT researcher Richard Greenblatt writes MacHack, the first chess program to win against a person in a chess tournament. The first robot – an AMF Versatran – is imported into Japan
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Marvin Minsky develops a computer-controlled, hydraulic-powered,
wall-mounted tentacle arm. -
The Japanese company Kawasaki develops the Kawasaki-Unimate 2000, the first industrial robot ever produced in Japan, with technology licensed from Unimation. Stanford Artificial Intelligence Lab researcher Victor Scheinman
creates the Stanford Arm, the first successful electrically
powered, computer-controlled robot arm. -
Cincinnati Milacron Corporation releases the T3, (The Tomorrow
Tool) the first commercially available minicomputer-controlled
industrial robot. Wabot 1, the world’s first full-scale anthropomorphic robot, is
built at Waseda University in Japan. It is able to communicate in
Japanese, walk and grip objects with its hands. -
Victor Scheinman develops the Programmable Universal Manipulation Arm, which becomes widely used in industry. Japanese engineer Shigeo Hirose designs the Soft Gripper, designed to wrap around an object in snake-like fashion, at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. Robot arms are used on the Viking 1 and 2 space probes. The film Star Wars features “droids” R2-D2 and C-3PO.
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Unimation develops the PUMA (Programmable Universal Machine for Assembly), based on Victor Scheinman design.
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Austrian researcher Hans Moravec creates the Stanford Cart, an
autonomous vehicle that can navigate across a room full of
obstacles. -
The film Blade Runner features androids that are "more human than
human." -
American AI researcher Douglas Lenat initiates the EnCYClopedia project to create a database of common sense to help robots understand our world.
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The PUMA 560 robotic surgical arm is used in the first documented use of a robot-assisted surgical procedure.
Two remotely-operated robots built by American roboticist William
"Red" Whittaker are sent into the flooded basement of the damaged
reactor building following the meltdown at the Three Mile Island
nuclear power plant. The Remote Reconnaissance Vehicle and the Core Sampler surveyed the site, sent back information and drilled core samples to measure radiation levels. -
LEGO collaborates with the MIT Media Lab to bring the first LEGO based educational products to market.
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The Mobile Robots Group at MIT creates a walking robot named
Genghis. MIT researchers Rodney Brooks and A. M. Flynn publish the paper "Fast, Cheap and Out of Control: A Robot Invasion of the Solar System," which makes the case for building many small, cheap robots rather than few big, expensive ones. -
American neurosurgeon John Adler invents the CyberKnife, a robot that images a patient and delivers a pre-planned dose of
radiation. -
American designer Marc Thorpe founds Robot Wars, an event in which radio-controlled robots compete in live, gladiator-style events.
Seiko Epson develops Monsieur, an ultra-miniature, self-propelled
mobile robot, the world's smallest micro robot. -
Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute's Dante II robot
descends into the crater of the Mount Spurr volcano in Alaska to
sample volcanic gases