Begin Robotics

BEGIN ROBOTICS: HISTORY OF

ROBOTICS TIMELINE
Additional Resource

©University of Reading 2019 Monday 16 December 2019 Page 1

 DATE EVENT DESCRIPTION IMAGE

Unknown Golden Robot Talos mythical golden robot built by Hephaistos was fabled to roam the No image
island of Crete.

-350 The Pigeon The Greek mathematician, Archytas of Tarentum builds a mechanical bird So-called Archytas of Tarentum
dubbed "the Pigeon". The device was a bird shaped model, propelled by The identification with Archytas was derived from
steam. the comparison of this bust with the head on a
coin, afterwards discovered to be false.
For more information take a look at: http://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-
technology/steam-powered-pigeon-archytas-flying-machine-antiquity-
002179

© Marie-Lan Nguyen / Wikimedia Commons

Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 Generic:
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/dee
d.en

-222 Ktesibios/Tesibiu Whilst at first sight, water clocks don’t sound robotic, they are relevant to No image
s. Water clocks robotics for two reasons. Firstly, they are examples of feedback systems,
and regulators. and secondly some early intricate robotic devices acted as water clocks.

It is worth pointing out that a bucket full of water with a hole in it is a

feedback system. The flow of water that comes out through the hole is
determined by the pressure exerted by the water, which is the water weight
divided by the area of the hole. So, as water comes out, the weight of water
and hence the pressure is reduced so the water comes out less quickly.

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 This is relevant to perhaps the first man made feedback system: the water
clock of Ktesibios in around 250 BC. The aim was to have a measure of the
time since the sun rose and this was achieved by having a bucket which
was emptied initially and into which water flowed at a constant rate – the
height of water in the bucket indicating the time. The difficulty was to
ensure the water flowed in at a constant rate, for which a second bucket
was provided, with a hole in the bottom. But as noted above, the flow from
such a bucket varies with the amount of water in it. The solution: to keep
the top bucket full. Then, assuming atmospheric pressure variations were
small enough, a constant flow of water left this bucket.

So as to ensure the second bucket was always full, a float valve was used:
if the water level dropped the float dropped thereby opening a valve to let
water into the vessel. Water flowed until the bucket was full again.

10 AD Hero of Hero of Alexandria was a Greek Mathematician and Engineer who devised
Alexandria. ‘automata’ and theatrical robots. ‘Automata’ can be used to describe
devices which use mechanics or pneumatics, for example the automatic
Self opening opening and closing temple door.
temple doors,
theatrical robots.
He also constructed a three-wheeled cart powered by a falling weight
which pulled string wrapped around the cart’s axle. The strings were
wrapped in different directions which then determined the way the cart
(robot) moved. This string-based control is equivalent to a modern day
programming language.

You can find out more about the Hero of Alexandria in this blog: [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
https://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-technology/ancient-invention-
steam-engine-hero-alexandria-001467

1200 al-Jazarī. al-Jazarī was a scholar, inventor, mechanical engineer, craftsman, artist The elephant clock from Al-Jazari's manuscript.
and mathematician who lived during the Islamic Golden Age.
Elephant water
clock. He made an Elephant Water Clock for the King of Diyarbakr in present-day
Turkey in about 1200 CE, i.e. over 800 years ago! It’s not only a clock that
tells the time but also a pioneering robotic machine.

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 You can find out more about the elephant water clock here:
http://www.1001inventions.com/media/video/clock

By Al-Jazari [Public domain], via Wikimedia

Commons

1739 Vaucanson’s Jacques de Vaucanson (1709 - 1782) was a French engineer credited with Vaucanson duck automaton
Duck creating fine automata that some regard as the world’s first robots.

His defecating duck ‘ate’ food out of the exhibitor’s hand, swallowed it,
digested it, and excreted it, all before an audience.

He is also credited with creating the first completely automated loom.

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 Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

1770 Jaquet-Droz The most complex of three automata by Pierre Jaquet-Droz, Henri-Louis
’scribe’. Jaquet-Droz and Jean-Frédéric Leschot.
Clockwork
automata: writing, It is able to write up to 40 letters of text which is coded on a wheel. The
drawing and actual writing is done by a goose feather which the scribe dips in ink.
playing music.

Horlogerie-Suisse video accessed via YouTube

1770 The Turk Wolfgang von Kempelen constructed The Turk, supposedly an automaton An engraving of the Turk from Karl Gottlieb von
which could play chess. Windisch's 1784 book Inanimate Reason
The Turk played several games during demonstrations across Europe and
often won! In fact there was space under for a man to recline inside the
machine to make it work - Certainly a good example of telemanipulation.

Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

1817 Frankenstein Frankenstein (or The Modern Prometheus), written by Mary Shelley and Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
published published in 1818, is often considered the first true science fiction story. by Richard Rothwell
oil on canvas, exhibited 1840
It tells the tale of scientist Victor Frankenstein who is horrified when he NPG 1235
creates life in the form of a grotesque creature. The story has been
adapted into many films (the first in 1910) and TV shows.

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 © National Portrait Gallery, London

1864 US patent with This was patented in reference to miniature human-like toy automatons. No image
the word
”Android” issued

1898 Remote Nikola Tesla builds and demonstrates a remote controlled robot boat at
controlled robot Madison Square Garden.
boat
For more information, take a look at
http://www.pbs.org/tesla/ll/ll_robots.html

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 Nikola Tesla Museum [Public Domain], via
Wikimedia Commons

1913 First conveyer Henry T Ford installs the first conveyor belt based assembly line, allowing Ford Assembly line
belt assembly line Model T Fords to be assembled in 93 minutes.

The U.S. National Archives and Records

Administration

1920 Rossum’s Rossum’s Universal Robots (RUR) is a science fiction play by Karel Čapek. No image
Universal Robots The play is about a young idealist Helena Glory, who goes to the remote
published which island where Rossum’s Universal Robots are made, aiming to liberate the
introduced the robots, which are ‘stripped down’ versions of humanity designed as
word ‘robot’ to the inexpensive workers.
English
Language. The play introduced the word robot to the English Language. Robot comes
from robota meaning ‘drudgery’ and robotnik meaning peasant or serf.

1927 Metropolis (Fritz This influential science-fiction film presents a highly stylized futuristic city No image
Lang) where a beautiful and cultured utopia exists above a bleak underworld
populated by mistreated workers.

When the privileged youth Freder discovers this, he befriends the teacher
Maria, and tries to help the workers.

You can find out more at https://www.filmsite.org/metr.html

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 1929 Gakutensoku - Gakutensoku (which comes from the Japanese for “learning from the laws No image
Japan’s first robot of nature”) was the first robot to be built in Japan in 1928, and was
designed and manufactured by biologist and botanist Makoto Nishimura.

It could change its facial expression (using springs and gears in its head),
puff its cheeks (to imitate breathing) and move its head, hands and body.

You can find out more about Gakutensoku here: http://jpninfo.com/39826

1932 Lilliput Lilliput, created in Japan, was the first robot toy to be produced for mass Exhibit in the Toy Museum.
consumption.

By D J Shin (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0

(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)
or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)],
via Wikimedia Commons

1937 Elektro robot built ELEKTRO was a 7ft high robot made from aluminium over a steel frame Elektro the Moto-Man and his Little Dog Sparko
by the weighing 260 lb. It was built for New York’s World’s Fair in 1939 by J M
Westinghouse Barrnett of Westinghouse.
Electric
Corporation, Ohio Its ‘brain’ includes an electric eye, 48 relays and signal lights. Walking was
achieved using rollers under each foot driven by chains connected to
motors in its torso.

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 It also had 9 motors to operate its fingers, arms, head and the mouth – for
simple speech.

1939 Isaac Asimov Isaac Asimov (1920-1992) was a chemist and prolific author famous for his No image
writes his robot Foundation Universe as well as his books on robots with ‘positronic’ brains.
stories His first robot story was written in 1939, and I, Robot, published in 1950
was his first collection of robot stories, which influenced the 2004 Will
Smith film of the same name. He also wrote a series of books featuring his
detective Elijah Baley and his robot partner R Daneel Olivaw.

Key to these stories were his three laws of robotics, which relate to how
robots interact with one another and with humans: - A robot may not injure
a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
- A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings, except where
such orders would conflict with the First Law. - A robot must protect its own
existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or
Second Laws. To which were added in a later novel, the zeroth law - A
robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to
harm.

1940 Mechanically In 1949, Ray Goertz started developing master slave manipulators which No image
coupled ’master- led to various devices, such as electronically remote manipulators for the
slave’ nuclear industry and teleoperator configurations for the Lunar space
manipulators program.

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 created by
German engineer
Goertz.

1949 Grey Walter's In the late 1940s, Grey Walter built his first two turtle robots called Elmer Replica of Grey Walter's robots
robots (Elmer and and Elsie. He wanted to prove that complex behaviour could be achieved
Elsie). by suitable connection between brain cells. His work inspired later
generations, including Rodney Brooks.

We’ll have a closer look at Grey Walter’s Machina Speculatrix in week four.

By Anders Sandberg from Oxford, UK (Replica of

Grey Walter's tortoise) [CC BY 2.0
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via
Wikimedia Commons

1952 Astro boy Between 1952 and 1968, Osamu Tezuka from Japan wrote a series of No image
adventures for a robot named Astro Boy.

Astro Boy (or the Mighty Atom) lives in a futuristic world where Robots and
humans coexist. He has seven powers which he uses to fight crime, evil
and injustice.

You can find out more about the adventures of Astro Boy on Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astro_Boy

1954 First patent for George C Devol Jr, applied for patent on the first industrial robot, No image
the first industrial Unimation.
robot

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 1960 General Electric Ralph S Mosher created a cybernetic anthropomorphous machine. The No image
Handyman/Hardy movement of a human operator’s arms is detected using a mechanical
man system, which is connected to the actual robot, whose arms move just like
the human’s arms.

If you want to learn more, take a look at

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardiman

1961 MH-1 The MH-1 was a computer operated mechanical hand, developed by No image
Heinrich Ernst, as part of his work at Massachusetts Institute of
Technology.

1966 Shakey - the first Shakey (so called because of its jerky actions) was created in 1966 by the
mobile robot Stanford Research Institute. It was the first mobile robot which could
which could reason its actions, because it had a bump detector, TV Camera and Range
reason its Finder. It could take general instructions and work out how to achieve
actions. them, rather than being given explicit commands.

For example, if commanded to ‘move blocks around a room’ it would work

out how it would need to move in order to achieve this.

By Marshall Astor from San Pedro, United States

[CC BY-SA 2.0
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)],

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 via Wikimedia Commons. Exhibition in the
Computer History Museum.

1969 General Electric Designed by Ralph Mosher to help soldiers carry equipment over difficult
Walking Truck terrain. The walking truck used feedback to give the operator a better idea
of what was happening.

By Larry Pieniazek, Lar (commons) or User:Lar

(en:wp primary) (Picture taken by uploader with
Nikon Coolpix 2100) [GFDL
(http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-
SA 4.0-3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0-
3.0-2.5-2.0-1.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

1969 Unimation Inc. In 1959, George Devol and Joseph Engelberger formed their company, No image
introduce first Unimation, which produced the first industrial robot. It used hydraulic
industrial robot actuators and was controlled by a program on a magnetic drum, which
specified the angles of each joint, accurate to 1/10,000 of an inch.

1969 Stanford Arm - In 1969, Victor Scheinman invented the Stanford arm. This was a No image
Stanford Artificial pioneering robot, which made precise movements under a computer’s
Intelligence control, which was a significant development for future robot applications
Laboratory such as; assembly in the manufacturing industry. The design was sold to
Unimation in 1977. You can see pictures of the arm at:
http://infolab.stanford.edu/pub/voy/museum/pictures/display/1-Robot.htm

1977 First Star Wars Star Wars (later retitled Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope) was released.
Movie The film featured robots R2-D2 and C-3PO.

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 1983 NASA Canadarm A robotic arm was needed for Space Shuttle missions to allow payloads to
be deployed, manoeuvred and captured in space. The Shuttle Remote
Manipulator system was designed by Canadians for the purpose – hence
the term Canadarm.

The original arm was capable of moving objects weighting 332.5 kg in

space, later versions could cope with items weighing 3293kg in space (on
Earth the arm cannot lift itself!).

You can find out more about Canadarm on the NASA website:
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/behindscenes/rms_anniversary
.html By NASA (https://archive.org/details/STS072-
722-041) [Public domain], via Wikimedia
Commons

1994 Dante ll Carnegie Universities eight-legged walking robot, Dante ll, successfully
descends into Mt Spurr to collect volcanic gas samples.

U.S. Geological Survey, USGS, Photo by Game

McGimsey

1997 Mars Pathfinder This comprised a lander, named the Carl Sagan Memorial Station, and the NASA
associated rover called Sojourner. Between landing on July 4th 1997 and
its final transmission on September 27th 1997, 550 images from the rover
were sent back to Earth, together with data from chemical analysis of rocks
and soils and information on Mars’ weather.

You can find out more information at:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/mars-pathfinder/

Image coutesy of nasaimages.org

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 1999 AIBO Sony releases the first version of AIBO, a robotic dog with the ability to AIBO created by SONY.
learn, entertain and communicate with its owner.

Picture By Alex (Flickr: DSC00203) [CC BY-SA

2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-
sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

2000 ASIMO Honda debuts ASIMO, the next generation in its series of humanoid robots.

You can watch a video of ASIMO in action here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-28316199

By Z22 (Own work) [CC BY-SA 4.0

(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)],
via Wikimedia Commons. ASIMO created by
Honda. http://world.honda.com/ASIMO/

2002 First cyborg? There is ongoing research into cyborgs. Professor Kevin Warwick, now No image
Visiting Professor of Cybernetics at the University of Reading, claims to be

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 the first cyborg because he has implanted a microchip into his nervous
system as part of ‘Project Cyborg’.

2004 Second Mars After leaving in July 2003 NASA’s, twin robot geologists (the Mars NASA
rover Exploration Rovers), finally landed on Mars in January 2004. This was part
of a long term robotic exploration of the red planet, to search for and
characterize rocks. The rovers also took panoramic images which provide
scientists with the information they need for further research.

Image coutesy of nasaimages.org

2005 DARPA Grand A driverless car racing competition, funded by the Department of Defence No image
Challenge in the US. Participants compete for cash prizes and to further research in
robotics.

2005 Self-replicating Researchers at Cornell University build the first self-replicating robot. Each No image
robot ‘robot’ is made up of a small tower of computerized cubes which link
together through the use of magnets.

For more information see:

http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2005/05/researchers-build-robot-can-
reproduce

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 2008 MOD Grand The Ministry of Defence (MoD) Grand Challenge is a competition designed
Challenge to find solutions to a comprehensive range of military threats in an urban
environment.

Two teams from the University of Reading reached the final of the
competition, where each team was given an hour to search 150m2 of
Copehill in order to identify different types of threat.

These could include improvised explosive devices, snipers, military

vehicles and armoured soldiers, with the number of correct identifications
being used to rank the teams.

The entrants’ vehicles needed to move autonomously from a forward

operating base and communicate the identity and position of threats back
to base.

You can read our news story from the event here:
https://www.reading.ac.uk/15/research/ResearchReviewonline/featuresnew
s/res-featuregrandchallenge.aspx

2012 DARPA robotics DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) Grand Challenge NASA
challenge/ is a competition for American autonomous vehicles and to facilitate robotic
Curiosity lands on development. The first challenge was held in a desert in California in 2004,
Mars however there was no winner as none of the robots finished the route.
2012 was also the year that the Curiosity Rover landed on Mars.

Image courtesy of nasaimages.org

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 2015-2018 Advances from Boston Dynamics has been going since the 1990s and has made many No image
Boston Dynamics advances in recent years, including: Canine inspired robot - Spot (2015),
new and inspired SpotMini
(2017) and Humanoid robot does backflip (2018).

2017 Robot solving You can read the full blog from OpenAI, here: No image
Rubik’s cube https://openai.com/blog/solving-rubiks-cube

2019 A group of robots You can read the full blog post from Google AI, here: No image
use deep learning https://ai.google/research/teams/brain/robotics/
for pick and place

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