History of Robotics

Early History  4 th century BC – Aristotle came up with the original concept of automation.  Def of automation – self moving machine constructed for the purpose of imitating the motions of men or animals.  1 st generation (14 th century) – clock controlled ornamentations. An automated rooster erected on top of the cathedral in Strasbourg in 1350 is a good example. It was designed to flap its wings and crow every day at noon.  2 nd generation (18 th century) – were based on self- contained clockwork mechanisms. Also in 1774 inventors Pierre and Henri-Louis Jacquet-Droz unveiled the “Automatic Scribe”. This lifelike figure of a boy could draw and write any message up to 40 characters long. A robot woman playing a piano was another one of their great inventions.

Early beginnings con’t  In the 1800’s began the Industrial Revolution, thus new inventions. One of these is the Textile Machine. Operated by punch cards, this programmable Loom was capable of mass production and is one of the earliest machines to store a program designed to control its entire operation

 1890: Thomas Edison Used a condensed version of his phonograph invention in the design of the famous talking dollfamous talking doll  1898: Nikola Tesla, a famous inventor, patents the first remote controlled device. The “teleautomaton” was a crewless boat that was controlled from a distance without wires.

When did the term Robotics start?  In 1921 Czech author, Karel Copek wrote a play using the word “robot”. After that automations were called robots.

The First Robots  In 1926, Westinghouse Electric Corporation created Televox, the first robot put to useful work. They followed Televox with a number of other simple robots, including one called Rastus, made in the crude image of a black man. In the 1930s, they created a humanoid robot known as Elektro for exhibition purposes, including the 1939 and 1940 World's Fairs. In 1928, Japan's first robot, Gakutensoku, was designed and constructed by biologist Makoto Nishimura.

Elektro  Elektro is the nickname of a robot built by the Westinghouse Electric Corporation between 1937 and Seven feet tall, weighing 265 pounds, humanoid in appearance, he could walk by voice command, speak about 700 words (using a 78- rpm record player), smoke cigarettes, blow up balloons, and move his head and arms. Elektro's body consisted of a steel gear, cam and motor skeleton covered by an aluminum skin. His photoelectric "eyes" could distinguish red and green light. He was on exhibit at the 1939 New York World's Fair and reappeared at that fair in 1940, with "Sparko", a robot dog that could bark, sit, and beg. Click here to see Elektro (go to 34 minutes into movie)Click here to see Elektro

More Westinghouse  In 1948 after invention of the transistor, many robots were used in conjunction with the computer

Industrial Robot  First patent for a computer controlled industrial robot was developed in George Devol created a computerized memory and control system called “universal automation”. He started the industrial robot revolution by selling designs of powerful assembly line arms to General Motors.

Mobot  Late 1960’s Hughes Aircraft created the Mobot. They were designed for environments beyond human capacity and tasks beyond human capability.  For a more detailed history click here! click here