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Industrial robotics pioneer George Devol files a patent (pictured) for the first programmable robot and coins the term "universal automaton."
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George Devol and Joseph Engelberger (pictured) form the world's first robotics company, Unimation. In the 1960s, it is purchased by Condec, which later is bought, in part, by industrial manufacturing giant Eaton.
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Unimate, the world's first industrial robot, goes to work on a General Motors assembly line.
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The Artificial Intelligence Center at the Stanford Research Center begins development of Shakey, the first mobile robot. It is endowed with a limited ability to see and model its environment and is controlled by a computer that fills an entire room.
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An eight-legged robot named Dante attempts to explore Antarctica's Mount Erebus volcano. It is remotely controlled from the U.S. and collects a small amount of data before mechanical difficulties end the experiment. But the landmark effort ushers in a new era of robotic exploration of hazardous environments.
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Gadget lovers develop a serious case of puppy love for Sony's robot dog AIBO. The $2,000 mechanical mutt can navigate around a room and respond to a set of limited commands.
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Honda's humanoid robot ASIMO steps onto the stage. Standing 1.3 meters tall, it can walk and run with a near-human gait.
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There were two Mars exploration rovers launched toward Mars in search of water on Mars. They carried different scientific instruments. The goal of the rovers was to drive about 40 meters in one day. The exploration rovers went beyond what was expected. marsrover.nasa.gov/overview/
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HRP-4 was created by Kawada and AIST. It is bipedal robot. This robot has great flexibilty and balance and looks like a human when it operates.
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Grover is a Greenland Rover. Grover was created by teams of students attending engineering bootcamp. GROVER was built to carry a ground penetrating radar to analyze snow.
