HISTORY OF ROBOTICS

History Of Robotics

In 1942 the science fiction writer Isaac Asimov created his Three Laws of Robotics.

Three laws of Robotics 

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

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

Fully autonomouss only appeared in the second half of the 20th century. The first digitally operated and programmable robot, the Unimate, was installed in 1961 to lift hot pieces of metal from a die casting machine and stack them. Commercial and industrial robotsare widespread today and used to perform jobs more cheaply, more accurately and more reliably, than humans. They are also employed in some jobs which are too dirty, dangerous, or dull to be suitable for humans. Robots are widely used in manufacturing, assembly, packing and packaging, transport, earth and space exploration, surgery, weaponry, laboratory research, safety, and the mass production of consumer and industrial goods.

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 (1023–957 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.		Yan Shi (Chinese: 偃师)
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.		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
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	Robot band, hand-washing automaton,automated moving peacocks	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 Čapek
1930s	Humanoid robot exhibited at the 1939 and 1940 World's Fairs	Elektro	Westinghouse Electric Corporation
1946	First general-purpose digital computer	Whirlwind	Multiple people
1946	First general-purpose digital computer	Whirlwind	Multiple people
1948	Simple robots exhibiting biological behaviors	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	Unimate	George Devol
1961	First installed industrial robot.	Unimate	George Devol
1973	First industrial robot with six electromechanically driven axes	Famulus	KUKA Robot Group
1974	The world’s 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