The history of robots has its roots as far back as ancient myths and legends. Modern concepts

were begun to be developed when the Industrial Revolution allowed the use of more complex

mechanics and the subsequent introduction of electricity made it possible to power machines

with small compact motors. After the 1920s the modern formulation of a humanoid machine was

developed to the stage where it was possible to envisage human sized robots with the capacity

for near human thoughts and movements, first envisaged millennia before.

The first uses of modern robots were in factories as industrial robots simple fixed machines capable of manufacturing tasks which allowed production without the need for human assistance.

Digitally controlled industrial robots and robots making use of artificial intelligence have been

built since the 1960s. Chinese accounts relate a history of automata back to the 10th century BC

when Yan Shi is credited with making an automaton resembling a human in an account from the

Lie Zi text.

Western and Eastern civilisations have concepts of artificial servants and companions with a

long history. Many ancient mythologies include artificial people, such as the mechanical servants

built by the Greek god Hephaestus (Vulcan to the Romans), the clay golems of Jewish legend

and clay giants of Norse legend.

Likely fictional, the Iliad illustrates the concept of robotics by stating that the god Hephaestus

made talking mechanical handmaidens out of gold.[1]

Greek mathematician Archytas of

Tarentum is reputed to have built a mechanical pigeon around 400 BC, possibly powered by

steam, capable of flying. The clepsydra was made in 250 BC by Ctesibius of Alexandria, a

physicist and inventor from Ptolemaic Egypt. Heron of Alexandria (1070 AD) created some mechanical devices in the late 1st century AD, including one that allegedly could speak. Aristotle

took up an earlier reference in Homer's Iliad and speculated that automatons could someday

bring about human equality by making the abolition of slavery possible in his book Politics (ca.

322 BC).

Ancient beginnings

The water-powered mechanism of Su Song's astronomical clock tower, featuring a clepsydra

tank, waterwheel, escapement mechanism, and chain drive to power an armillary sphere and 113

striking clock jacks to sound the hours and to display informative plaques

In ancient China, a curious account on automata is found in the Lie Zi text, written in the 3rd

century BC. Within it there is a description of a much earlier encounter between King Mu of

Zhou (1023957 BC) and a mechanical engineer known as Yan Shi, an 'artificer'. The latter proudly presented the king with a life-size, human-shaped figure of his mechanical handiwork.

[2]

The king stared at the figure in astonishment. It walked with rapid strides, moving its head up

and down, so that anyone would have taken it for a live human being. The artificer touched its

chin, and it began singing, perfectly in tune. He touched its hand, and it began posturing, keeping

perfect time...As the performance was drawing to an end, the robot winked its eye and made

advances to the ladies in attendance, whereupon the king became incensed and would have had

Yen Shih [Yan Shi] executed on the spot had not the latter, in mortal fear, instantly taken the

robot to pieces to let him see what it really was. And, indeed, it turned out to be only a

construction of leather, wood, glue and lacquer, variously coloured white, black, red and blue.

Examining it closely, the king found all the internal organs completeliver, gall, heart, lungs, spleen, kidneys, stomach and intestines; and over these again, muscles, bones and limbs with

their joints, skin, teeth and hair, all of them artificial...The king tried the effect of taking away the

heart, and found that the mouth could no longer speak; he took away the liver and the eyes could

no longer see; he took away the kidneys and the legs lost their power of locomotion. The king

was delighted.[2]

Early water clocks are sometimes grouped in with the beginning of robotics. They began in

China in the 6th century BC[3]

and the Greco-Roman world in the 4th century BC where the

Clepsydra is known to have been used as a stop-watch for imposing a time limit on clients' visits

in Athenian brothels.[4]

The idea of artificial people in western mythology dates at least as far back as the ancient

legends of Cadmus, who sowed dragon teeth that turned into soldiers, and the myth of

Pygmalion, whose statue of Galatea came to life. In Greek mythology, the deformed god of

metalwork (Vulcan or Hephaestus) created mechanical servants, ranging from intelligent, golden

handmaidens to more utilitarian three-legged tables that could move about under their own

power, and the bronze man Talos defended Crete.

Concepts akin to a robot can be found as long ago as the 4th century BC, when the Greek

mathematician Archytas of Tarentum postulated a mechanical bird he called "The Pigeon" which

was propelled by steam. Yet another early automaton was the clepsydra, made in 250 BC by

Ctesibius of Alexandria, a physicist and inventor from Ptolemaic Egypt.[5]

Hero of Alexandria

(1070 AD) made numerous innovations in the field of automata, including one that allegedly could speak.

Taking up the earlier reference in Homer's Iliad, Aristotle speculated in his Politics (ca. 322 BC,

book 1, part 4) that automatons could someday bring about human equality by making possible

the abolition of slavery:

There is only one condition in which we can imagine managers not needing subordinates, and masters not needing slaves. This condition would be that each instrument could do its own work, at the word of command

or by intelligent anticipation, like the statues of Daedalus or the tripods made by Hephaestus, of which Homer relates that "Of their own motion they entered the conclave of Gods on Olympus", as if a shuttle should weave

of itself, and a plectrum should do its own harp playing.

Jewish lore mentions the Jewish legend of the Golem, a clay creature animated by Kabbalistic

magic. Similarly, in the Younger Edda, Norse mythology tells of a clay giant, Mkkurklfi or

Mistcalf, constructed to aid the troll Hrungnir in a duel with Thor, the God of Thunder.

c. 250

BC The Lie Zi described an automaton.[5]

c. 50

AD

Greek mathematician Hero of Alexandria described a machine to automatically pour wine for

party guests.[6]

1206

Al-Jazari described a band made up of humanoid automata which, according to Charles B.

Fowler, performed "more than fifty facial and body actions during each musical selection."[7] Al-

Jazari also created hand washing automata with automatic humanoid servants,[8][verification needed]

and an elephant clock incorporating an automatic humanoid mahout striking a cymbal on the

half-hour.[citation needed] His programmable "castle clock" also featured five musician automata

which automatically played music when moved by levers operated by a hidden camshaft

attached to a water wheel.[9]

1495 Leonardo da Vinci designs a humanoid automaton that looks like an armored knight, known as

Leonardo's robot.[10]

1738

Jacques de Vaucanson builds The Flute Player, a life-size figure of a shepherd that could play

twelve songs on the flute and The Tambourine Player that played a flute and a drum or

tambourine.[11]

1774 Pierre Jacquet-Droz and his son Henri-Louis created the Draughtsman, the Musicienne and the

Writer, a figure of a boy that could write messages up to 40 characters long.[12]

1898 Nikola Tesla publically demonstrates his "automaton" technology by wirelessly

controlling a model boat at the Electrical Exposition held at Madison Square Garden in

New York City during the height of the Spanish-American War.

1921

Czech writer Karel apek introduced the word "robot" in his play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal

Robots). The word "robot" comes from the word "robota", meaning, in Czech and Polish,

"forced labour, drudgery".[10]

1927 The Maschinenmensch (machine-human), a gynoid humanoid robot, also called "Parody",

"Futura", "Robotrix", or the "Maria impersonator" (played by German actress Brigitte Helm),

perhaps the most memorable humanoid robot ever to appear on film, is depicted in Fritz Lang's

film Metropolis.

1941-

42

Isaac Asimov formulates the Three Laws of Robotics, and in the process of doing so, coins the

word "robotics".

1948 Norbert Wiener formulates the principles of cybernetics, the basis of practical robotics.

1961

The first digitally operated and programmable non-humanoid robot, the Unimate, is installed on

a General Motors assembly line to lift hot pieces of metal from a die casting machine and stack

them. It was created by George Devol and constructed by Unimation, the first robot

manufacturing company.

1969 D.E. Whitney publishes his article "Resolved motion rate control of manipulators and human

prosthesis".[13]

1970 Miomir Vukobratovid has proposed Zero Moment Point, a theoretical model to explain biped

locomotion.[14]

1972 Miomir Vukobratovid and his associates at Mihajlo Pupin Institute build the first active

anthropomorphic exoskeleton.

1973

In Waseda University, in Tokyo, Wabot-1 is built. It was able to walk, to communicate with a

person in Japanese and to measure distances and directions to the objects using external

receptors, artificial ears and eyes, and an artificial mouth.[15]

1980 Marc Raibert established the MIT Leg Lab, which is dedicated to studying legged locomotion and

building dynamic legged robots.[16]

1983

Using MB Associates arms, "Greenman" was developed by Space and Naval Warfare Systems

Center, San Diego. It had an exoskeletal master controller with kinematic equivalency and

spatial correspondence of the torso, arms, and head. Its vision system consisted of two 525-line

video cameras each having a 35-degree field of view and video camera eyepiece monitors

mounted in an aviator's helmet.[17]

1984

At Waseda University, the Wabot-2 is created, a musician humanoid robot able to communicate

with a person, read a normal musical score with his eyes and play tunes of average difficulty on

an electronic organ.[15]

1985 Developed by Hitachi Ltd, WHL-11 is a biped robot capable of static walking on a flat surface at

13 seconds per step and it can also turn.[15]

1985

WASUBOT is another musician robot from Waseda University. It performed a concerto with the

NHK Symphony Orchestra at the opening ceremony of the International Science and Technology

Exposition.

1986

Honda developed seven biped robots which were designated E0 (Experimental Model 0)

through E6. E0 was in 1986, E1 E3 were done between 1987 and 1991, and E4 - E6 were done

between 1991 and 1993.[18]

1989

Manny was a full-scale anthropomorphic robot with 42 degrees of freedom developed at

Battelle's Pacific Northwest Laboratories in Richland, Washington, for the US Army's Dugway

Proving Ground in Utah. It could not walk on its own but it could crawl, and had an artificial

respiratory system to simulate breathing and sweating.[15]

1990 Tad McGeer showed that a biped mechanical structure with knees could walk passively down a

sloping surface.[19]

1993 Honda developed P1 (Prototype Model 1) through P3, an evolution from E series, with upper

limbs. Developed until 1997.[18]

1995

Hadaly was developed in Waseda University to study human-robot communication and has

three subsystems: a head-eye subsystem, a voice control system for listening and speaking in

Japanese, and a motion-control subsystem to use the arms to point toward campus

destinations.

1995 Wabian is a human-size biped walking robot from Waseda University.

1996

Saika, a light-weight, human-size and low-cost humanoid robot, was developed at Tokyo

University. Saika has a two-DOF neck, dual five-DOF upper arms, a torso and a head. Several

types of hands and forearms are under development also. Developed until 1998.[15]

1997 Hadaly-2, developed at Waseda University, is a humanoid robot which realizes interactive

communication with humans. It communicates not only informationally, but also physically.

2000 Honda creates its 11th bipedal humanoid robot, able to run, ASIMO.[18]

2001 Sony unveils small humanoid entertainment robots, dubbed Sony Dream Robot (SDR). Renamed

Qrio in 2003.

2001

Fujitsu realized its first commercial humanoid robot named HOAP-1. Its successors HOAP-2 and

HOAP-3 were announced in 2003 and 2005, respectively. HOAP is designed for a broad range of

applications for R&D of robot technologies.[20]

2002 HRP-2, biped walking robot built by the Manufacturing Science and Technology Center (MSTC)

in Tokyo.[21]

2003

JOHNNIE, an autonomous biped walking robot built at the Technical University of Munich. The

main objective was to realize an anthropomorphic walking machine with a human-like,

dynamically stable gait [22]

2003 Actroid, a robot with realistic silicone "skin" developed by Osaka University in conjunction with

Kokoro Company Ltd.[23]

2004 Persia, Iran's first humanoid robot, was developed using realistic simulation by researchers of

Isfahan University of Technology in conjunction with ISTT.[24]

2004 KHR-1, a programmable bipedal humanoid robot introduced in June 2004 by a Japanese

company Kondo Kagaku.

2005

The PKD Android, a conversational humanoid robot made in the likeness of science fiction

novelist Philip K Dick, was developed as a collaboration between Hanson Robotics, the FedEx

Institute of Technology, and the University of Memphis.[25]

2005 Wakamaru, a Japanese domestic robot made by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, primarily intended

to provide companionship to elderly and disabled people.[26]

2005

Nao is a small open source programmable humanoid robot developped by Aldebaran Robotics,

in France. Widely used by world wide universities as a research plateform and educational

tool.[27]

2005

The Geminoid series is a series of ultra-realistic humanoid robots or Actroid developped by

Hiroshi Ishiguro of ATR and Kokoro in Tokyo. The original one, Geminoid HI-1 was made at its

image. Followed Geminoid-F in 2010 and Geminoid-DK in 2011.[27]

2006

REEM-A, a biped humanoid robot designed to play chess with the Hydra Chess engine. The first

robot developed by PAL Robotics, it was also used as a walking, manipulation speech and vision

development platform.[28]

2006 iCub, a biped humanoid open source robot for cognition research.[29]

2006 Mahru, a network-based biped humanoid robot developped in South Korea.[30]

2007 TOPIO, a ping pong playing robot developed by TOSY Robotics JSC.[31]

2007 Twendy-One, a robot developed by the WASEDA University Sugano Laboratory for home

assistance services. It is not biped, as it uses an omni-directional mobile mechanism.[32]

2008 Justin, a humanoid robot developed by the German Aerospace Center (DLR).[33]

2008 KT-X, the first international humanoid robot developed as a collaboration between the five-time

consecutive RoboCup champions, Team Osaka, and KumoTek Robotics.[34]

2008

Nexi, the first mobile, dexterous and social robot, makes its public debut as one of TIME

magazine's top inventions of the year.[35] The robot was built through a collaboration between

the MIT Media Lab Personal Robots Group,[36] Xitome Design[37] UMass Amherst and Meka

robotics.[38][39]

2008 Salvius (robot), The first open source humanoid robot built in the United States is created.

2008 REEM-B, the second biped humanoid robot developed by PAL Robotics. It has the ability to

autonomously learn its environment using various sensors and carry 20% of its own weight.[40]

2009 HRP-4C, a Japanese domestic robot made by National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science

and Technology, shows human characteristics in addition to bipedal walking.

2009 Turkey's first dynamically walking humanoid robot, SURALP, is developed by Sabanci University

in conjunction with Tubitak.[41]

2009 Kobian, an robot developed by WASEDA University can walk, talk and mimic emotions.[42]

2010

NASA and General Motors revealed Robonaut 2, a very advanced humanoid robot. It was part of

the payload of Shuttle Discovery on the successful launch February 24, 2011. It is intended to do

spacewalks for NASA.[43]

2010 Students at the University of Tehran, Iran unveil the Surena II. It was unveiled by President

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.[44]

2010 Researchers at Japan's National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology

demonstrate their humanoid robot HRP-4C singing and dancing along with human dancers.[45]

2010

In September the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology also

demonstrates the humanoid robot HRP-4. The HRP-4 resembles the HRP-4C in some regards but

is called "athletic" and is not a gynoid.

2010

REEM, a humanoid service robot with a wheeled mobile base. Developed by PAL Robotics, it can

perform autonomous navigation in various surroundings and has voice and face recognition

capabilities.[46]

2011 In November Honda unveiled its second generation Honda Asimo Robot. The all new Asimo is

the first version of the robot with semi-autonomous capabilities.

2012

In April, the Advanced Robotics Department in Italian Institute of Technology released its first

version of the Compliant huManoid robot CoMan which is designed for robust dynamic walking

and balancing in rough terrain.[47]

1951 to 2000

After 1950 computers and robotics began to rapidly increase in both complexity and numbers as

the technology had exponential growth in production, availability and capability.

[edit] 1951 to 1960

In 1951 William Shockley invented the bipolar junction transistor, announced at a press

conference on 4 July 1951. Shockley obtained a patent for this invention on 25 September 1951.

In 1951 a computer called LEO became operational in the UK. It was built by Lyons for its own

use: this was the world's first software programmable digital electronic computer for commercial

applications, exploiting the US development of mercury delay line memory, and built with the

support of the Cambridge EDSAC project. LEO was used for commercial work running business

application programs, the first of which was rolled out 17 November 1951.

Eckert and Mauchly completed EDVAC in 1951. An improvement on ENIAC and UNIVAC,

EDVAC used mercury delay lines to store data, making it the USA's first software stored

program computer.[34]

In 1952, the television network CBS correctly predicted the election of

Dwight D. Eisenhower as president using UNIVAC. In 1952 IBM announced its 701 model

computer, marketed towards scientific use, it was designed by Nathaniel Rochester.[35]

Stanislaw

Ulam and physicist Paul Stein converted MANIAC I (used for solving calculations involved in

creating the hydrogen bomb) to play a modified game of chess in 1956; it was the first computer

to beat a human in a game of chess.[36]

The term "Artificial Intelligence was created at a

conference held at Dartmouth College in 1956.[37]

Allen Newell, J. C. Shaw, and Herbert A.

Simon pioneered the newly created artificial intelligence field with the Logic Theory Machine

(1956), and the General Problem Solver in 1957.[38]

In 1958, John McCarthy and Marvin Minsky

started the MIT Artificial Intelligence lab with $50,000.[39]

John McCarthy also created LISP in

the summer of 1958, a programming language still important in artificial intelligence research.[40]

Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce invented the integrated circuit or "chip" in 1959; the inventors

worked independent of each other. This development eventually revolutionized computers by

affecting both the size and speed.[41]

[edit] 1961 to 1971

Unimate, the first industrial robot ever created began work on the General Motors assembly line

in 1961; the machine was conceived in 1954 by George Devol. Unimate was manufactured by

Unimation. Unimate is remembered as the first industrial robot.[42]

In 1962 John McCarthy

founded the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at Stanford University.[43]

The Rancho

Arm was developed as a robotic arm to help handicapped patients at the Rancho Los Amigos

Hospital in Downey, California; this computer controlled arm was bought by Stanford University

in 1963.[44]

IBM announced its IBM System/360 in 1964. The system was heralded as being

more powerful, faster, and more capable than its predecessors.[45]

In 1965, Gordon Moore, a co-

founder of Intel in 1968, develops what will become known as Moore's Law; the idea that the

number of components capable of being built onto a chip will double every two years.[46]

The

same year, doctoral student Edward Feigenbaum, geneticist and biochemist Joshua Lederberg,

and Bruce Buchanan (who held a degree in philosophy) begin work on the DENDRAL, an expert

system designed to work in the field of organic chemistry.[47]

Feigenbaum also founded the

Heuristic Programming Project in 1965, it later became the Stanford Knowledge Systems

Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.[11]

The program Mac Hack was also written in 1966; it beat

artificial intelligence critic Hubert Dreyfus in a game of chess. The program was created by

Richard Greenblatt.[48]

Seymour Papert created the Logo programming language in 1967. It was

designed as an educational programming language.[49]

The film 2001: A Space Odyssey was

released in 1968; the movie prominently features HAL 9000, a malevolent artificial intelligence

unit which controls a spacecraft.[50]

Marvin Minsky created the Tentacle Arm in 1968; the arm

was computer controlled and its 12 joints were powered by hydraulics.[44]

Mechanical

Engineering student Victor Scheinman created the Stanford Arm in 1969; the Stanford Arm is

recognized as the first electronic computer controlled robotic arm (Unimate's instructions were

stored on a magnetic drum).[44]

The first floppy disc was released in 1970. It measured eight

inches in diameter and read-only.[51]

The first mobile robot capable of reasoning about its

surroundings, Shakey was built in 1970 by the Stanford Research Institute (now SRI

International). Shakey combined multiple sensor inputs, including TV cameras, laser

rangefinders, and "bump sensors" to navigate.[44]

In the winter of 1970, the Soviet Union

explored the surface of the moon with the lunar vehicle Lunokhod 1, the first roving remote-

controlled robot to land on another world.

[edit] 1971 to 1980

The first microprocessor, called the 4004 was created by Ted Hoff at Intel in 1971. Measuring

1/8 of an inch by 1/16 of an inch, the chip itself was more powerful than ENIAC.[52]

Artificial

intelligence critic Hubert Dreyfuss published his influential book "What Computers cannot Do"

in 1972.[53]

Douglas Trumbull's "Silent Running" was released in 1972; the movie was notable

for the three robot co-stars, named Huey, Dewey, and Louie.[54]

Released in 1973 was the logic

based programming language PROLOG; this logic based language becomes important in the

field of artificial intelligence.[55]

Freddy and Freddy II, both built in the United Kingdom, were

robots capable of assembling wooden blocks in a period of several hours.[56]

German based

company KUKA built the world's first industrial robot with six electromechanically driven axes,

known as FAMULUS.[57]

In 1974, David Silver designed The Silver Arm; the Silver Arm was

capable of fine movements replicating human hands. Feedback was provided by touch and

pressure sensors and analyzed by a computer.[44]

MYCIN, an expert system developed to study

decisions and prescriptions relating to blood infections. MYCIN was written in Lisp.[58]

Marvin

Minsky published his landmark paper "A Framework for Representing Knowledge" on artificial

intelligence.[59]

By 1975, four expert systems relating to medicine had been created; PIP,

MYCIN, CASNET, and Internist.[11]

1975: more than 5,000 computers were sold in the United

States, and the first personal computer was introduced.[11]

The Kurzweil Reading Machine

(invented by Raymond Kurzweil), intended to help the blind, was released in 1976. Capable of

recognizing characters, the machine formulated pronunciation based on programmed rules.[60]

Based on studies of flexible objects in nature (such as elephant trunks and the vertebrae of

snakes), Shigeo Hirose designed the Soft Gripper in 1976 the gripper was capable of conforming

to the object it was grasping.[44]

The knowledge based system Automated Mathematician was

presented by Douglas Lenat in 1976 as part of his doctoral dissertation. Automated

Mathematician began with a knowledge of 110 concepts and rediscovered many mathematical

principles; Automated Mathematician was written in Lisp.[61]

Joseph Weizenbaum (creator of

ELIZA, a program capable of simulating a Rogerian physcotherapist) published Computer Power

and Human Reason, presenting an argument against the creation of artificial intelligence.[62]

Steven Jobs and Stephen Wozniak created the Apple Computer in 1977, and released the Apple

II.[63]

George Lucas' movie Star Wars was also released in 1977. Star Wars featured two robots;

an android named C-3PO and R2-D2, both of which become iconic as robots.[64][65]

Voyagers 1

and 2 were launched in 1977 to explore the solar system. The 30 year old robotic space probes

continue to transmit data back to earth and are approaching the heliopause and the interstellar

medium.[66]

The SCARA, Selective Compliance Assembly Robot Arm, was created in 1978 as

an efficient, 4-axis robotic arm. Best used for picking up parts and placing them in another

location, the SCARA was introduced to assembly lines in 1981.[67]

XCON, an expert system

designed to customize orders for industrial use, was released in 1979.[68]

The Stanford Cart

successfully crossed a room full of chairs in 1979. The Stanford Cart relied primarily on stereo

vision to navigate and determine distances.[44]

The Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon

University was founded in 1979 by Raj Reddy.[69]

[edit] 1981 to 1990

KUKA IR 160/60 Robots from 1983

Takeo Kanade created the first "direct drive arm" in 1981. The first of its kind, the arm's motors

were contained within the robot itself, eliminating long transmissions.[70]

IBM released its first

personal computer (PC) in 1981; the name of the computer was responsible for popularizing the

term "personal computer".[71]

Prospector a "computer-based consultation program for mineral

exploration",[72]

created in 1976, discovered an unknown deposit of molybdenum in Washington

state. The expert system had been updated annually since its creation.[73]

The Fifth Generation

Computer Systems Project (FGCS) was started in 1982. Its goals were knowledge based

information processing and massive parallelism in a supercomputer, artificial intelligence like

system.[74]

Cyc, a project to create a database of common sense for artificial intelligence, was

started in 1984 by Douglas Leant. The program attempts to deal with ambiguity in language, and

is still underway.[75]

The first program to publish a book, the expert system Racter, programmed

by William Chamberlain and Thomas Etter, wrote the book "The Policeman's Beard is Half-

Constructed" in 1983. It is now thought that a system of complex templates were used.[76]

In

1984 Wabot-2 was revealed; capable of playing the organ, Wabot-2 had 10 fingers and two feet.

Wabot-2 was able to read a score of music and accompany a person.[77]

In 1985, Kawasaki

Heavy Industries' license agreement with Unimation was terminated; Kawasaki began to produce

its own robots. Their first robot was released one year later.[78]

By 1986, artificial intelligence

revenue was about $1 billion US dollars. Chess playing programs HiTech and Deep Thought

defeated chess masters in 1989. Both were developed by Carnegie Mellon University; Deep

Thought development paved the way for the Deep Blue.[79]

In 1986, Honda began its humanoid

research and development program to create robots capable of interacting successfully with

humans.[80]

In 1987, Artificial intelligence related technologies of the flims, Batteries Not

Included robots, now produce a revenue of $1.4 billion US dollars.[11]

In 1988, Stubli Group

purchased Unimation.[44]

The Connection Machine was built in 1988 by Daniel Hillis; the

supercomputer used 64,000 processors simultaneously.[81]

A hexapodal robot named Genghis

was revealed by MIT in 1989. Genghis was famous for being made quickly and cheaply due to

construction methods; Genghis used 4 microprocessors, 22 sensors, and 12 servo motors.[82]

Rodney Brooks and Anita M. Flynn published "Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control: A Robot

Invasion of The Solar System". The paper advocated creating smaller cheaper robots in greater

numbers to increase production time and decrease the difficulty of launching robots into

space.[83]

[edit] 1991 to 2000

While competing in a 1993 NASA sponsored competition, Carnegie Mellon University's eight

legged robot Dante failed to collect gases from Mt. Erebus because of a broken fiber optic cable.

Dante was designed to scale slopes and harvest gases near the surface of the magma; however,

the failure in the cable did not permit the robot to enter the active volcano.[84]

In 1994, Dante II

entered Mt. Spurr and successfully sampled the gases within the volcano.[85]

The biomimetic

robot RoboTuna was built by doctoral student David Barrett[disambiguation needed]

at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1996 to study how fish swim in water. RoboTuna is

designed to swim and resemble a blue fin tuna.[86]

Invented by Dr. John Adler, in 1994, the

Cyberknife (a stereotactic radiosurgery performing robot) offered an alternative treatment of

tumors with a comparable accuracy to surgery performed by human doctors.[87]

Honda's P2

humanoid robot was first shown in 1996. Standing for "Prototype Model 2", P2 was an integral

part of Honda's humanoid development project; over 6 feet tall, P2 was smaller than its

predecessors and appeared to be more human-like in its motions.[88]

Expected to only operate for

seven days, the Sojourner rover finally shuts down after 83 days of operation in 1997. This small

robot (only weighing 23 lbs) performed semi-autonomous operations on the surface of Mars as

part of the Mars Pathfinder mission; equipped with an obstacle avoidance program, Sojourner

was capable of planning and navigating routes to study the surface of the planet. Sojourner's

ability to navigate with little data about its environment and nearby surroundings allowed the

robot to react to unplanned events and objects.[89]

Also in 1997, IBM's chess playing program

Deep Blue beat the then current World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov playing at the

"Grandmaster" level. The super computer was a specialized version of a framework produced by

IBM, and was capable of processing twice as many moves per second as it had during the first

match (which Deep Blue had lost), reportedly 200,000,000 moves per second. The event was

broadcast live over the internet and received over 74 million hits.[90]

The P3 humanoid robot was

revealed by Honda in 1998 as a part of the company's continuing humanoid project.[91]

In 1999,

Sony introduced the AIBO, a robotic dog capable of interacting with humans, the first models

released in Japan sold out in 20 minutes.[92]

Honda revealed the most advanced result of their

humanoid project in 2000, named ASIMO. ASIMO is capable of running, walking,

communication with humans, facial and environmental recognition, voice and posture

recognition, and interacting with its environment.[93]

Sony also revealed its Sony Dream Robots,

small humanoid robots in development for entertainment.[94]

In October 2000, the United Nations

estimated that there were 742,500 industrial robots in the world, with more than half of the

robots being used in Japan.[10]

[edit] 2001 to 2010

In April 2001, the Canadarm2 was launched into orbit and attached to the International Space

Station. The Canadarm2 is a larger, more capable version of the arm used by the Space Shuttle

and is hailed as being "smarter."[95]

Also in April, the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Global Hawk

made the first autonomous non-stop flight over the Pacific Ocean from Edwards Air Force Base

in California to RAAF Base Edinburgh in Southern Australia. The flight was made in 22

hours.[96]

The popular Roomba, a robotic vacuum cleaner, was first released in 2002 by the

company iRobot.[97]

In 2004, Cornell University revealed a robot capable of self-replication; a

set of cubes capable of attaching and detaching, the first robot capable of building copies of

itself.[98]

On 3 and 24 January the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity land on the surface of

Mars. Launched in 2003, the two robots will drive many times the distance originally expected,

and Opportunity is still operating as of mid 2012.[99]

Self-driving cars had made their appearance

by the middle of the first decade of the 21st century, but there was room for improvement. All 15

teams competing in the 2004 DARPA Grand Challenge failed to complete the course, with no

robot successfully navigating more than five percent of the 150 mile off road course, leaving the

$1 million dollar prize unclaimed.[100]

In the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge, five teams

completed the off-road course; Stanford University's Stanley won first place and the $2 million

dollar prize.[101]

Also in 2005, Honda revealed a new version of its ASIMO robot, updated with

new behaviors and capabilities.[102]

In 2006, Cornell University revealed its "Starfish" robot, a 4-

legged robot capable of self modeling and learning to walk after having been damaged.[103]

In

September 2007, Google announced its Lunar X Prize. The Lunar X Prize offers 30 million

dollars to the first private company which lands a rover on the moon and sends images back to

earth.[104]

In 2007, TOMY launched the entertainment robot, i-sobot, which is a humanoid

bipedal robot that can walk like a human beings and performs kicks and punches and also some

entertaining tricks and special actions under "Special Action Mode".

[edit] 2010 to the present

Robonaut 2, the latest generation of the astronaut helpers, launched to the space station aboard

Space Shuttle Discovery on the STS-133 mission. It is the first humanoid robot in space, and

although its primary job for now is teaching engineers how dexterous robots behave in space, the

hope is that through upgrades and advancements, it could one day venture outside the station to

help spacewalkers make repairs or additions to the station or perform scientific work

Robotics From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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The Shadow robot hand system

Robotics is the branch of technology that deals with the design, construction, operation,

development and application of robots [1]

and computer systems for their control, sensory

feedback, and information processing. These technologies deal with automated machines that

can take the place of humans, in dangerous or manufacturing processes, or simply just resemble

humans. Many of today's robots are inspired by nature contributing to the field of bio-inspired

robotics.

The concept in creation of machines that could operate autonomously dates back to classical

times, but research into the functionality and potential uses of robots did not grow substantially

until the 20th century.[2]

Throughout history, robotics has been often seen to mimic human

behavior, and often manage tasks in a similar fashion. Today, robotics is a rapidly growing field,

as technological advances continue, research, design, and building new robots serve various

practical purposes, whether domestically, commercially, or militarily. Many robots do jobs that

are hazardous to people such as defusing bombs, exploring shipwrecks, and mines.

Date Significance Robot Name Inventor

Third

century

B.C. and

earlier

One of the earliest descriptions of automata

appears in the Lie Zi text, on a much earlier

encounter between King Mu of Zhou (1023957 BC) and a mechanical engineer known as

Yan Shi, an 'artificer'. The latter allegedly

presented the king with a life-size, human-

shaped figure of his mechanical handiwork.[7]

Yan Shi

First

century

A.D. and

earlier

Descriptions of more than 100 machines and

automata, including a fire engine, a wind

organ, a coin-operated machine, and a steam-

powered engine, in Pneumatica and Automata

by Heron of Alexandria

Ctesibius, Philo of

Byzantium, Heron

of Alexandria, and

others

c. 420

B.C.E

A wooden, steam propelled bird, which was

able to fly

Archytas of

Tarentum

1206 Created early humanoid automata,

programmable automaton band[8]

Robot band, hand-

washing

automaton,[9]

automated moving

peacocks[10]

Al-Jazari

1495 Designs for a humanoid robot Mechanical knight Leonardo da

Vinci

1738 Mechanical duck that was able to eat, flap its

wings, and excrete Digesting Duck

Jacques de

Vaucanson

1898 Nikola Tesla demonstrates first radio-

controlled vessel. Teleautomaton Nikola Tesla

1921 First fictional automatons called "robots"

appear in the play R.U.R.

Rossum's Universal

Robots Karel apek

1930s Humanoid robot exhibited at the 1939 and Elektro Westinghouse

1940 World's Fairs Electric

Corporation

1948 Simple robots exhibiting biological

behaviors[11]

Elsie and Elmer

William Grey

Walter

1956

First commercial robot, from the Unimation

company founded by George Devol and

Joseph Engelberger, based on Devol's

patents[12]

Unimate George Devol

1961 First installed industrial robot. Unimate George Devol

1973 First industrial robot with six

electromechanically driven axes[13][14]

Famulus

KUKA Robot

Group

1974

The worlds first microcomputer controlled electric industrial robot, IRB 6 from ASEA,

was delivered to a small mechanical

engineering company in southern Sweden.

The design of this robot had been patented

already 1972.

IRB 6 ABB Robot

Group

1975 Programmable universal manipulation arm, a

Unimation product PUMA Victor Scheinman

2004

Launch of IRC5, which set new standards with

its modular concept, a completely new

ergonomically-designed Windows CE

interface unit (touch screen) to speed up

programming.

IRC5 ABB Robot

Group