Who invented the first robot?
Robot
In 1928, one of the first humanoid robots, Eric, was exhibited at the annual exhibition of the Model Engineers Society in London, where it delivered a speech. Invented by W. H. Richards, the robot's frame consisted of an aluminium body of armour with eleven electromagnets and one motor powered by a twelve-volt power source. The robot could move its hands and head and could be controlled through remote control or voice control. Both Eric and his "brother" George toured the world.
Hanson Robotics
Hanson Robotics Limited is a Hong Kong-based engineering and robotics company founded by David Hanson, best known for its development of humanlike robots with artificial intelligence (AI) for consumer, entertainment, service, healthcare, and research applications. It has a team of 45 employees and it is the creator of such high-profile humanoid robots as the Albert HUBO, the first walking robot with human-like expressions; BINA48, an interactive humanoid robot bust; and Sophia, the world's first robot citizen.
Robot
The first reference in Western literature to mechanical servants appears in Homer's "Iliad". In Book XVIII, Hephaestus, god of fire, creates new armor for the hero Achilles, assisted by robots. According to the Rieu translation, "Golden maidservants hastened to help their master. They looked like real women and could not only speak and use their limbs but were endowed with intelligence and trained in handwork by the immortal gods." The words "robot" or "android" are not used to describe them, but they are nevertheless mechanical devices human in appearance. "The first use of the word Robot was in Karel Čapek's play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) (written in 1920)". Writer Karel Čapek was born in Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic).
Leonel Moura
In 2010 Leonel Moura creates a new version of the theatre play RUR with robots.
R.U.R., Rossum’s Universal Robots is a classic playwright written by Karel Capek in the 1920s in which the word ROBOT was coined. Men and robots clash resulting in the extermination of mankind and the emergence of robots as a new dominant species. The play was always staged with human actor’s transvestite as robots. Moura’s new version displays, for the first time, real robots interacting on stage with human actors.
RUR, the birth of the robot, debuted in August 2010 at the Itáu Cultural, São Paulo, Brazil.
HAL (robot)
The first HAL prototype was proposed by Yoshiyuki Sankai, a professor at Tsukuba University. Fascinated with robots since he was in the third grade, Sankai had striven to make a robotic suit in order “to support humans.” In 1989, after receiving his Ph.D. in robotics, he began the development of HAL. Sankai spent three years, from 1990 to 1993, mapping out the neurons that govern leg movement. It took him and his team an additional four years to make a prototype of the hardware.
William Grey Walter
Grey Walter's most well-known work was his construction of some of the first electronic autonomous robots. He wanted to prove that rich connections between a small number of brain cells could give rise to very complex behaviors - essentially that the secret of how the brain worked lay in how it was wired up. His first robots, which he used to call "Machina speculatrix" and named Elmer and Elsie - ELectroMEchanical Robot, Light-Sensitive, were constructed between 1948 and 1949 and were often described as "tortoises" due to their shape and slow rate of movement - and because they "taught us" about the secrets of organisation and life. The three-wheeled tortoise robots were capable of phototaxis, by which they could find their way to a recharging station when they ran low on battery power.
History of robots
Mechanical automata were constructed in the 10th century BC in the Western Zhou Dynasty. The artisan Yan Shi made humanoid automata that could sing and dance. The machine is said to have possessed lifelike organs, like bones, muscles and joints. The Cosmic Engine, a clock tower built by Su Song in Kaifeng, China, in 1088, featured mechanical mannequins that chimed the hours, ringing gongs or bells among other devices. Fetes of automation continued into the Tang Dynasty. Daifeng Ma built a automated dresser servant for the queen. Ying Wenliang built a automata man that proposed toasts at banquets and a wooden woman automata that played the sheng. Among the best documented automata of ancient China are that of Han Zhile, a Japanese who moved to China in the early 9th century BC.
History of robots
The first post-classical society known to construct automata were the Byzantines. They inherented the knowledge on automata from the Alexandrians und developed it further to build water clocks with gear mechanisms, such as for example described by Procopius about 510. The knowledge on how to construct automata was passed on to the Arabs. Harun al-Rashid built water clocks with complicated hydraulic jacks and moving human figures. One such clocks was gifted to Charlemagne, King of the Franks, in 807. Arab engineers such as Banu Musa and Al-Jazari published treatise on hydraulics and further advanced the art of water clocks. The segmental gears described in "The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices", published by Al-Jazari shortly before his death in 1206, appeared 100 years later in the most advanced European clocks. Al-Jazari also published instructions on the construction of humanoid automata.
Robot
Possibly the most prolific author of the twentieth century was Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) who published over five-hundred books. Asimov is probably best remembered for his science-fiction stories and especially those about robots, where he placed robots and their interaction with society at the center of many of his works. Asimov carefully considered the problem of the ideal set of instructions robots might be given in order to lower the risk to humans, and arrived at his Three Laws of Robotics: a robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm; a robot must obey orders given it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law; and a robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. These were introduced in his 1942 short story "Runaround", although foreshadowed in a few earlier stories. Later, Asimov added the Zeroth Law: "A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm"; the rest of the laws are modified sequentially to acknowledge this.
Magnus, Robot Fighter
Magnus was raised by a robot known as 1A, a name which implies that he is the very first robot of his type ever manufactured. 1A seems to be self-aware and possess emotions. A firm believer in the Three Laws of Robotics, 1A recognized the threat represented by the dependency of humans on robots in general, and the developments in North Am due to H8 in particular. Therefore, 1A trained Magnus to protect humans against both rogue robots, and humans who used normal robots for evil purposes. Magnus was trained from infancy by 1A in an under-sea domed house, using advanced techniques, to become a skilled martial artist who could break steel with his bare hands. In addition, 1A equipped his charge with a device that would allow him to "hear" robot-to-robot radio communications.
Robot
Remotely operated vehicles were demonstrated in the late 19th century in the form of several types of remotely controlled torpedoes. The early 1870s saw remotely controlled torpedoes by John Ericsson (pneumatic), John Louis Lay (electric wire guided), and Victor von Scheliha (electric wire guided).
Automaton
The automata in the Hellenistic world were intended as tools, toys, religious idols, or prototypes for demonstrating basic scientific principles. Numerous water powered automata were built by Ktesibios, a Greek inventor and the first head of the Great Library of Alexandria, for example he ""used water to sound a whistle and make a model owl move. He had invented the world's first "cuckoo" clock"". This tradition continued in Alexandria with inventors such as the Greek mathematician Hero of Alexandria (sometimes known as Heron), whose writings on hydraulics, pneumatics, and mechanics described siphons, a fire engine, a water organ, the aeolipile, and a programmable cart.
ASEA IRB
The ASEA IRB was constructed by Björn Weichbrodt, Ove Kullborg, Bengt Nilsson and Herbert Kaufmann and was manufactured by ASEA in Sweden/Västerås. The first model, , was developed in 1972–1973 on assignment by the ASEA CEO Curt Nicolin and was shown for the first time at the end of August 1973. The example shown in the Swedish National Museum of Science and Technology is the first robot that was sold. It was bought by Magnussons in Genarp to wax and polish stainless steel tubes bent at . This robot was donated to the museum during ASEA's 100-year anniversary in 1983.
Boilerplate (robot)
Boilerplate is built by Professor Archibald Campion in the 1880s and unveiled at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The robot's notable adventures include an expedition to the Antarctic, during which it saves the lives of the team members by singlehandedly moving ice floes, clearing a path for the ship to sail out.
History of artificial life
Other early famous examples include al-Jazari's humanoid robots. This Arabic inventor once constructed a band of automata, which can be commanded to play different pieces of music. There is also the case of Jacques de Vaucanson's artificial duck exhibited in 1735, which had thousands of moving parts and one of the first to mimic a biological system. The duck could reportedly eat and digest, drink, quack, and splash in a pool. It was exhibited all over Europe until it fell into disrepair.
Science fiction film
Robots have been a part of science fiction since the Czech playwright Karel Čapek coined the word in 1921. In early films, robots were usually played by a human actor in a boxy metal suit, as in "The Phantom Empire", although the female robot in "Metropolis" is an exception. The first depiction of a sophisticated robot in a United States film was Gort in "The Day the Earth Stood Still".
Robot
The Brennan torpedo, invented by Louis Brennan in 1877, was powered by two contra-rotating propellors that were spun by rapidly pulling out wires from drums wound inside the torpedo. Differential speed on the wires connected to the shore station allowed the torpedo to be guided to its target, making it "the world's first "practical" guided missile". In 1897 the British inventor Ernest Wilson was granted a patent for a torpedo remotely controlled by "Hertzian" (radio) waves and in 1898 Nikola Tesla publicly demonstrated a wireless-controlled torpedo that he hoped to sell to the US Navy.
Robot
Karel Čapek himself did not coin the word. He wrote a short letter in reference to an etymology in the "Oxford English Dictionary" in which he named his brother, the painter and writer Josef Čapek, as its actual originator.
Eric (robot)
Eric was the first British robot, built in 1928 by First World War veteran Captain William Richards, and aircraft engineer Alan Reffell. He was constructed to open the Exhibition of the Society of Model Engineers at London's Royal Horticultural Hall in 1928, after George VI (then the Duke of York) cancelled and an exasperated Richards, the exhibition's secretary, offered to "make a man of tin" to take the Duke's place. At the event's opening, Eric rose to his feet, bowed and gave a four-minute opening address.
Robert Williams (robot fatality)
His family sued the manufacturers of the robot, Litton Industries, alleging "that Litton was negligent in designing, manufacturing and supplying the storage system and in failing to warn [system operators] of foreseeable dangers in working within the storage area." In a 1983 jury decision, the court awarded his estate $10 million and concluded that there simply were not enough safety measures in place to prevent such an accident from happening. He would go down in history as the first recorded human death by robot. The award was raised to $15 million in January 1984. Litton settled with the estate of Williams for an undisclosed amount in exchange for Litton not admitting negligence.
History of robots
In 1939, the humanoid robot known as Elektro appeared at the World's Fair. Seven feet tall (2.1 m) and weighing 265 pounds (120 kg), it could walk by voice command, speak about 700 words (using a 78-rpm record player), smoke cigarettes, blow up balloons, and move its head and arms. The body consisted of a steel gear cam and motor skeleton covered by an aluminium skin.
Android (robot)
Hanson Robotics, Inc., of Texas and KAIST produced an android portrait of Albert Einstein, using Hanson's facial android technology mounted on KAIST's life-size walking bipedal robot body. This Einstein android, also called "Albert Hubo", thus represents the first full-body walking android in history (see video at). Hanson Robotics, the FedEx Institute of Technology, and the University of Texas at Arlington also developed the android portrait of sci-fi author Philip K. Dick (creator of "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?", the basis for the film "Blade Runner"), with full conversational capabilities that incorporated thousands of pages of the author's works. In 2005, the PKD android won a first place artificial intelligence award from AAAI.
Social robot
While robots have often been described as possessing social qualities (see for example the tortoises developed by William Grey Walter in the 1950s), social robotics is a fairly recent branch of robotics. Since the early 1990s artificial intelligence and robotics researchers have developed robots which explicitly engage on a social level. Notable researchers include Cynthia Breazeal, Tony Belpaeme, Aude Billard, Kerstin Dautenhahn, Yiannis Demiris, Hiroshi Ishiguro, Maja Mataric, Javier Movellan, Brian Scassellati and Dean Weber. Also related is the Kansai engineering movement in Japanese science and technology --- for social robotics, see especially work by Takayuki Kanda, Hideki Kozima, Hiroshi Ishiguro, Micho Okada, Tomio Watanabe, and P. Ravindra S. De Silva.
Roboty
ROBOTY was first introduced on October 21, 2010 by its inventor, Hamdi M. Sahloul, as his final year project. The seminar showed the components and capabilities of the robot. These capabilities included moving, speaking, hearing, facial recognition, and GPS navigation.
History of robots
The most famous Japanese robotic automata was presented to the public in 1927. The Gakutensoku was supposed to have a diplomatic role. Actuated by compressed air, it could write fluidly and raise its eyelids.. Many robots were constructed before the dawn of computer-controlled servomechanisms, for the public relations purposes of major firms. These were essentially machines that could perform a few stunts, like the automata of the 18th century. In 1928, one of the first humanoid robots was exhibited at the annual exhibition of the Model Engineers Society in London. Invented by W. H. Richards, the robot - named Eric - consisted of an aluminium suit of armour with eleven electromagnets and one motor powered by a 12-volt power source. The robot could move its hands and head and could be controlled by remote control or voice control.
Cobot
Cobots resulted from a 1994 General Motors initiative led by Prasad Akella of the GM Robotics Center and a 1995 General Motors Foundation research grant intended to find a way to make robots or robot-like equipment safe enough to team with people. The first cobots assured human safety by having no internal source of motive power. Instead, motive power was provided by the human worker.
The cobot's function was to allow computer control of motion, by redirecting or steering a payload, in a cooperative way with the human worker. 
Later cobots provided limited amounts of motive power as well.
History of robots
The history of robotics has its origins in the ancient world. The modern concept began to be developed with the onset of the Industrial Revolution, which allowed the use of complex mechanics, and the subsequent introduction of electricity. This made it possible to power machines with small compact motors. In the early 20th century, the notion of a humanoid machine was developed. Today, one can envisage human-sized robots with the capacity for near-human thoughts and movement.
Bozo the Iron Man
In the first installment (called Hugh Hazzard and his Iron Man, by Wayne Reid), the origin story, Commissioner Hunt contacts Hazzard by signal flare and brings him into the investigation of crimes committed by a mysterious robot. Seeing the robot robbing a jewellery store, Hugh manages to temporarily deactivate it and climbs inside its hollow chest to hitch a ride to the robot's home base. This turns out to be the laboratory of an evil scientist, Dr Von Thorp who is taken to the police by his own robot and later declared insane. The robot is again deactivated, and placed on a garbage scow for disposal at sea, but Hugh Hazzard has ideas of using the robot as a crime-fighting tool. He saves the robot from its watery fate, then names the robot Bozo.
Robot Man of Szeged
The Robot Man of Szeged (Hungarian: "Szegedi Robotember", literally "Robot Human of Szeged") was an early robot which was developed in Hungary in 1962. It was designed and constructed by Dr. Dániel Muszka of the University of Szeged, the same person who created the Ladybird of Szeged. The robot was made to serve in the Pioneer House of Szeged as a robotic receptionist, greeting and guiding visitors at the entrance.
History of robots
In 1951 Walter published the paper "A Machine that learns", documenting how his more advanced mechanical robots acted as intelligent agent by demonstrating conditioned reflex learning. The first digitally operated and programmable robot was invented by George Devol in 1954 and was called the Unimate. This later laid the foundations of the modern robotics industry.
Insbot
The scientists from LEURRE developed the first Insbot in 2002 and it has been undergoing development since. It runs on wheels and contains many computer processors, which are connected to cameras and proximity sensors, to help it avoid bumping into obstacles or other cockroaches. In the early stages of production, the group of scientists from LEURRE used a prior model, Alice robot, to conduct acceptance tests to determine how compatible the robot is within the society of cockroaches. The main challenges they faced were the robot's small size, the high level of integration (many sensors), and the darkness of the cockroach cuticle (Infrared (IR) sensors sensitivity). With the help of these tests, the scientists built a newer model which contained IR emitters with increased power, wireless communication modules for monitoring, additional sensors, more computational power, and a greater memory.
Hans Baruch
Hans Baruch (September 16, 1925 – June 6, 2013) was an American physiologist/inventor, noted mainly for his contributions to scientific apparatus and instruments in the field of automated clinical chemistry. His Robot Chemist "was the first commercially available discrete analyzer, and probably the first to produce results with a digital print-out."
History of robots
Westinghouse Electric Corporation built Televox in 1926; it was a cardboard cutout connected to various devices which users could turn on and off. In 1927, Fritz Lang's Metropolis was released; the Maschinenmensch ("machine-human"), a gynoid humanoid robot, also called "Parody", "Futura", "Robotrix", or the "Maria impersonator" (played by German actress Brigitte Helm), was the first robot ever to be depicted on film.
Wu Yulu
In the late 1970s, Wu got a job at a farm machinery factory, and the small income helped him turn used sewing machine parts and some steel wire into his first robot. "Until now, I don't know the theory of physics, but I knew that electricity can drive motors and power can be transferred to the robot's hands and legs with levers and wires," Wu said. After his first robot turned out to be "disabled," Wu continued to experiment. In 1982, the first movable robot, Wu Laoda (the first son of the Wu), was born.
Industrial robot
In 1969 Victor Scheinman at Stanford University invented the Stanford arm, an all-electric, 6-axis articulated robot designed to permit an arm solution. This allowed it accurately to follow arbitrary paths in space and widened the potential use of the robot to more sophisticated applications such as assembly and welding. Scheinman then designed a second arm for the MIT AI Lab, called the "MIT arm." Scheinman, after receiving a fellowship from Unimation to develop his designs, sold those designs to Unimation who further developed them with support from General Motors and later marketed it as the Programmable Universal Machine for Assembly (PUMA).
G.I. Robot
G.I. Robot is the name of a series of six fictional robots that appeared in comic books published by DC Comics. The very first G.I. Robot, nicknamed Joe, first appeared in "Star Spangled War Stories" #101 (February–March 1962), created by Robert Kanigher and Ross Andru, with a second one named Mac in "Star Spangled War Stories" #125 (February–March 1966), by Kanigher and Joe Kubert.
Hulk Robot
The first Hulk Robot was a simulacrum created by the scientists at Gamma Base that was used to test the value of the Iceberg Rocket that General Thunderbolt Ross had his scientists create.
Helen Greiner
In 1990, along with Rodney Brooks and Colin Angle, Greiner co-founded iRobot, a robotics company headquartered in Bedford, Massachusetts, which delivers robots into the consumer market. She co-designed the first version of the iRobot Roomba.
Unimate
It was invented by George Devol in the 1950s using his original patent filed in 1954 and granted in 1961 (). The patent begins:
The present invention relates to the automatic operation of machinery, particularly the handling apparatus, and to automatic control apparatus suited for such machinery.
Devol, together with Joseph Engelberger, his business associate, started the world's first robot manufacturing company, Unimation.
Mechanical toy
One of the first mechanical toys is the flying pigeon by Archytas of Tarentum created 400 years BC.
In 16th Century Leonardo da Vinci created his mechanical lion as a present for king Louis XII. The lion could walk and reveal a cluster of lilies from his chest.
In 1738 Jacques de Vaucanson created a mechanical robot duck that was able to drink and eat.
Pierre Jaquet-Doz created "The Writer, The Draftsman and The Musician" - toys that are still present in the museum of Art and History in Switzerland.
Spider-Slayer
The first series of robots were originally designed and built by Dr. Spencer Smythe with the financial backing of J. Jonah Jameson who piloted them for the pleasure of personally hunting the superhero he hated for capture. However, Spider-Man always managed to defeat each robot in turn. Smythe's continual efforts to perfect his machines backfired on him, leading to himself being fatally contaminated by radiation poisoning from the building materials of his creations. Blaming both Jameson and Spider-Man for this, he attempted, as a final act, to murder them both, but died just before Spider-Man thwarted the attempt.
Robotics
The word "robotics" was derived from the word "robot", which was introduced to the public by Czech writer Karel Čapek in his play "R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots)", which was published in 1920. The word "robot" comes from the Slavic word "robota", which means labour/work. The play begins in a factory that makes artificial people called "robots", creatures who can be mistaken for humans – very similar to the modern ideas of androids. Karel Čapek himself did not coin the word. He wrote a short letter in reference to an etymology in the "Oxford English Dictionary" in which he named his brother Josef Čapek as its actual originator.
Leonel Moura
RUR, the birth of the robot
Razer (robot)
Razer was designed and built by Ian Lewis and Simon Scott who, after watching the first series of "Robot Wars", agreed that combat robots had potential to be considerably more destructive than the pioneering machines on display. Their choice of weapon was a piercing arm attached to a hydraulic ram and powered by a pump, itself powered by a motorcycle starter motor. This was based on the principle of the brake press, a piece of industrial machinery used to bend metal through progressive force.
History of robots
In 1941 and 1942, Isaac Asimov formulated the Three Laws of Robotics, and in the process coined the word "robotics". In 1945 Vannevar Bush published As We May Think, an essay that investigated the potential of electronic data processing. He predicted the rise of computers, digital word processors, voice recognition and machine translation. He was later credited by Ted Nelson, the inventor of hypertext. In 1948, Norbert Wiener formulated the principles of cybernetics, the basis of practical robotics.
History of robots
The term "robot" was first used in a play published by the Czech Karel Čapek in 1920. "R.U.R." (Rossum's Universal Robots) was a satire, robots were manufactured biological beings that performed all unpleasant manual labor. According to Čapek, the word was created by his brother Josef from the Czech "robota", meaning servitude. The play "R.U.R," replaced the popular use of the word "automaton". However, until the 1950s "robot" was pronounced "robit" in films, radio and television programs: examples are "The Lonely" episode of the TV series "The Twilight Zone", first aired on 15 November 1959, and the sci-fi radio program "X Minus One".
Unimation
Unimation was the world's first robotics company. It was founded in 1962 by Joseph F. Engelberger and George Devol and was located in Danbury, Connecticut. Devol had already applied for a patent an industrial robotic arm in 1954; was issued in 1961.
History of artificial life
Automatons were quite a novelty. In the days before computers and electronics, some were very sophisticated, using pneumatics, mechanics, and hydraulics. The first automata were conceived during the third and second centuries BC and these were demonstrated by the theorems of Hero of Alexandria, which included sophisticated mechanical and hydraulic solutions. Many of his notable works were included in the book "Pneumatics", which was also used for constructing machines until early modern times. In 1490, Leonardo Da Vinci also constructed an armored knight, which is considered the first humanoid robot in Western civilization.
Geography of robotics
Robots of the United States include simple household robots such as Roomba to sophisticated autonomous aircraft such as the MQ-9 Reaper that cost 18 million dollars per unit. The first industrial robot, robot company and exoskeletons as well as the first dynamically balancing, organic, and nanoscale robots originate from the United States.
Gil Weinberg
Weinberg has developed a number of novel musical instruments for novices, such as the Beatbugs, and the Squeezables before conceiving the field of Robotic Musicianship. In 2005, he created the world first improvising robot, Haile, which can listen to human musicians, improvise and play along using a variety of musical algorithms. His next inventions were Shimon an improvising robotic marimba player that can improvise like jazz masters, and Travis (also known as Shimi), a smart-phone enabled robotic musical companion that is designed to enhance listeners musical experiences. Shimi is currently being commercialized by Tovbot Inc.
Karel Čapek
Karel Čapek introduced and made popular the frequently used international word "robot", which first appeared in his play "R.U.R." in 1920. While it is frequently thought that he was the originator of the word, he wrote a short letter in reference to an article in the "Oxford English Dictionary" etymology in which he named his brother, painter and writer Josef Čapek, as its actual inventor. In an article in the Czech journal "Lidové noviny" in 1933, he also explained that he had originally wanted to call the creatures "laboři" (from Latin "labor", work). However, he did not like the word, seeing it as too artificial, and sought advice from his brother Josef, who suggested "roboti" ("robots" in English).
Timeline of United States inventions (1946–1991)
An industrial robot is an automatically controlled, re-programmable, multipurpose manipulator programmable in three or more axes. The first to invent an industrial robot was George Devol and Joseph F. Engelberger.
Robotics
Fully autonomous 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 robots are 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, mining, transport, earth and space exploration, surgery, weaponry, laboratory research, safety, and the mass production of consumer and industrial goods.
Robots in literature
The first use of the word "Robot" was in Karel Čapek's play "R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots)" written in 1920 and first performed in Czechoslovakia in 1921, in New York City in 1922 and an English edition published in 1923. Artificial living beings are created from a chemical substitute for protoplasm but over time they learn about violence from their human creators and begin to revolt. The play ends on an optimistic, even spiritual, note as the artificial biology leads a male and female robot to fall in love and inherit the earth.
American robotics
In 1926, Westinghouse Electric Corporation created Televox, the first robot put to useful work. In the 1930s, they created a humanoid robot known as Elektro for exhibition purposes, including the 1939 and 1940 World's Fairs.
David Hanson (robotics designer)
Dr. David Hanson’s career has focused on creating humanlike robots. Hanson's most well-known creation is Sophia, the world's first ever robot citizen.
Robot
In Renaissance Italy, Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) sketched plans for a humanoid robot around 1495. Da Vinci's notebooks, rediscovered in the 1950s, contained detailed drawings of a mechanical knight now known as Leonardo's robot, able to sit up, wave its arms and move its head and jaw. The design was probably based on anatomical research recorded in his "Vitruvian Man". It is not known whether he attempted to build it.
Inland Fisher Guide Plant (New Jersey)
In 1961, the facility became the first commercial user in the United States to use a programmable industrial robot to replace human workers, installing the Unimate automated hydraulic arm developed by George Devol and Joseph Engelberger. It carried units of aluminum door handles and other automotive components weighing as much as into cooling pools; such units had just been die cast from molten metal, and the use of robots eliminated the risks to employees of handling extremely hot metal pieces. A task previously performed by three shifts of employees was converted to be done by the robot. The first production Unimate was donated to the Smithsonian Institution in 1971 after being used for 100,000 hours during its 10 years of continuous operation at the Ewing plant.
Android (robot)
Although Karel Čapek's robots in "R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots)" (1921)—the play that introduced the word "robot" to the world—were organic artificial humans, the word "robot" has come to primarily refer to mechanical humans, animals, and other beings. The term "android" can mean either one of these, while a cyborg ("cybernetic organism" or "bionic man") would be a creature that is a combination of organic and mechanical parts.
Robotic art
Advances in engineering created new possibilities for robotic art. In 1893, Prof. George Moore created "The Steam Man", a humanoid mechanism powered by a boiler, which he exhibited in New York City. Supported by a horizontal bar attached to a vertical post, it was capable of walking in a circle at a speed of four or five miles an hour; reportedly, it could not be held back by two men. In 1898, the physicist and engineer Nikola Tesla demonstrated a remote-controlled boat in Madison Square Garden, making use of a specially built indoor pond. This device has been identified as the world's first radio-controlled vessel. Tesla described it as having "a borrowed mind", and envisioned a fleet of fifty or a hundred submarines, or any other kind of vehicle, under the command of one or several operators.
Robotic governance
The fundamental and philosophical question of these literary works is what will happen, if humans presume to create autonomous, conscious or even godlike creatures, machines, robots or androids. While most of the older works broach the issue of the act of creation, if it is morally appropriate and which dangers could arise, Isaac Asimov was the first to realize the necessity to restrict and regulate the freedom of action of machines. He wrote the first Three Laws of Robotics.
Zadoc Dederick
Zadoc P. Dederick was an American inventor. Along with Isaac Grass he was the creator of a steam-powered humanlike robot designed to pull a cart. The invention was patented on March 24, 1868, as patent 75874, and operated through a system of levers and cranks, attached to steam-powered pistons and a boiler. The original prototype cost $2000 (about $32,487 in modern US dollars) and was built in Newark, New Jersey. Plans to produce it for $300 never went through, making this an example of an early development in steam power that was abandoned. Nonetheless, inventions such as this one spurred interest in steam power, as exemplified by novels such as "The Steam Man of the Prairies", and by many imitations and hoaxes that appeared as a result.
Kevin Warwick
The 1999 edition of the Guinness Book of Records recorded that Warwick performed the first robot learning experiment by Internet. One robot, with an artificial neural network brain in Reading, UK, learnt how to move around. It then taught, via the Internet, another robot in SUNY Buffalo New York State, USA, to behave the same way. The robot in the US was therefore not taught or programmed by a human, but rather by another robot based on what it itself had learnt.
George (robot)
In 1949 Tony Sale used the scrap metal from a grounded Wellington bomber to build a simple 6-feet humanoid robot he named George. The construction cost for the robot was about £15. Actually, this robot could be considered George Mark IV, as Sale already built a very basic robot in his parent's garage when he was 12 and named it George, plus two later versions.
Maschinenmensch
The Maschinenmensch (German for "robot" or literally "machine-person") is a fictional character in Fritz Lang's film "Metropolis", played by German actress Brigitte Helm in both its robot form and human incarnation. She is a gynoid (female robot or android) created by the scientist Rotwang. Named Maria in the film, and "Futura" in Thea von Harbou's original novel "Metropolis", she was one of the first robots ever depicted in cinema.
Atomic Robo
Atomic Robo is a robot possessing "automatic intelligence", created by Nikola Tesla in 1923. He is a core member of Tesladyne Industries, "a thinktank dedicated to exploring the fringes of scientific inquiry", whose Action Scientists often respond to paranormal and supernatural emergencies. Robo has a well developed sense of humor, and makes numerous wise cracks at his foes' expense. In the past, he has secretly worked with the United States government as well as NASA. Robo's personality is based on Clevinger's grandfather.
Robot
The idea of automata originates in the mythologies of many cultures around the world. Engineers and inventors from ancient civilizations, including Ancient China, Ancient Greece, and Ptolemaic Egypt, attempted to build self-operating machines, some resembling animals and humans. Early descriptions of automata include the artificial doves of Archytas, the artificial birds of Mozi and Lu Ban, a "speaking" automaton by Hero of Alexandria, a washstand automaton by Philo of Byzantium, and a human automaton described in the "Lie Zi".
Robotic vacuum cleaner
In 2002, the American advanced technology company, iRobot launched the Roomba floor vacuuming robot. IRobot was founded in 1990 by three roboticist name Colin Angle, Helen Greiner, and Rodney Brooks. The company was originally dedicated to making robots for military and domestic use. The Roomba wasn’t the first robot vacuum, but it was the most successful. Selling up to a million units in 2004. 2005 IRobot created the scooba it’s the opposite of the Roomba as it scrubs hard floors. Something that hasn’t been created before. IRobot wasn’t done their a year later in 2006 they released the dirt dog it cleaned up debris. The company wanted to make doing chores as simple as possible.
Hanson Robotics
The robot debuted at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in November 2005. It was the first android head in history to be mounted on a life-size walking frame. Albert Einstein HUBO can perform realistic facial expressions and mimic Albert Einstein's voice via a voice synthesizer. The robot is currently at the University of California, San Diego at the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2) where scientists study the capability of robots to learn emotional intelligence.
R. Daneel Olivaw
Daneel is a robot built by Roj Nemennuh Sarton and Han Fastolfe, who are Spacer roboticists from the planet Aurora, in the year 5020 AD. Although designed and built by Auroran roboticists, Daneel was constructed on Earth. He is the first humanoid, or "humaniform," robot ever constructed and is virtually indistinguishable from a human being. This "undercover" attribute enables him to help earth-policeman Elijah Baley solve crimes. Daneel and Baley first meet while Baley is investigating the murder of Daneel's co-creator Sarton in Spacetown. Daneel is physically a perfect likeness of Dr. Sarton.
Outline of robotics
The word "robot" was introduced to the public by Czech writer Karel Čapek in his play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots), published in 1920. The term "robotics" was coined by Isaac Asimov in his 1941 science fiction short-story "Liar!"
History of robots
The first electronic autonomous robots with complex behavior were created by William Grey Walter of the Burden Neurological Institute at Bristol, England in 1948 and 1949. He wanted to prove that rich connections between a small number of brain cells could give rise to very complex behaviors - essentially that the secret of how the brain worked lay in how it was wired up. His first robots, named Elmer and Elsie, were constructed between 1948 and 1949 and were often described as "tortoises" due to their shape and slow rate of movement. The three-wheeled tortoise robots were capable of phototaxis, by which they could find their way to a recharging station when they ran low on battery power.
Robot
According to the "Oxford English Dictionary," the first passage in Asimov's short story "Liar!" (1941) that mentions the First Law is the earliest recorded use of the word "robotics". Asimov was not initially aware of this; he assumed the word already existed by analogy with "mechanics," "hydraulics," and other similar terms denoting branches of applied knowledge.
History of robots
Among the first verifiable automation is a humanoid drawn by Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) in around 1495. Leonardo's notebooks, rediscovered in the 1950s, contain detailed drawings of a mechanical knight in armour which was able to sit up, wave its arms and move its head and jaw. In 1533, Johannes Müller von Königsberg created an automaton eagle and fly made of iron; both could fly. John Dee is also known for creating a wooden beetle, capable of flying. 
The 17th century thinker Rene Descartes believed that animals and humans were biological machines. On his last trip to Norway, he took with him a mechanical doll that looked like his dead daughter Francine. In the 18th century the master toy maker Jaques de Vaucanson built for Louis XV an automated duck with hundreds of moving parts, which could eat and drink. Vaucanson subsequently built humanoid automatons, a drummer and fife player were noted for their anatomical similarity to real human beings. Vaucanson's creation inspired European watchmakers to manufacture mechanical automata and it became fashionable among the European aristocracy to collect sophisticated mechanical devices for entertainment. In the 1770s the Swiss Pierre Jaquet-Droz created moving automata that looked like children, which delighted Mary Shelly, who went on to write "". The ultimate attempt at automation was The Turk by Wolfgang von Kempelen, a sophisticated machine that could play chess against a human opponent and toured Europe. When the machine was brought to the new world, it prompted Edgar Allan Poe to pen an essay, in which he concluded that it was impossible for mechanical devices to reason or think.
The Japanese craftsman Hisashige Tanaka, known as "Japan's Edison", created an array of extremely complex mechanical toys, some of which could serve tea, fire arrows drawn from a quiver, or even paint a Japanese "kanji" character. The landmark text "Karakuri Zui" ("Illustrated Machinery") was published in 1796.
I, Robot (short story)
The story is about a robot's confession. Some weeks earlier, its builder, Dr. Charles Link, built it in the basement. Link teaches his robot to walk, talk and behave civilly. Link's housekeeper sees the robot just enough to be horrified by it, but his dog is totally loyal to it. The robot is fully educated in a few weeks, Link then names it Adam Link, and it professes a desire to serve any human master who will have it. Soon afterwards, a heavy object falls on Dr. Link by accident and kills him. His housekeeper instantly assumes that the robot has murdered Dr. Link, and calls in armed men to hunt it down and destroy it. They do not succeed; in fact, they provoke the robot to retaliate, both by refusing to listen to it and by accidentally killing Dr. Link's dog. Back at the house, the robot finds a copy of "Frankenstein", which Dr. Link had carefully hidden from the robot, and finally somewhat understands the prejudice against it. In the end the robot decides that it simply is not worth killing several people just to get a hearing, writes its confession, and prepares to turn itself off.
Mario Taddei
Among the vast number of projects of Leonardo, there is a “mechanical knight” that has entered into the common imagination. In 1957 Carlo Pedretti was the first person to discover it, hidden amongst da Vinci’s countless designs. The mechanical knight was again mentioned in 1974, in the Codex Madrid edited by Ladislao Reti. Nevertheless, there was no attempt to reconstruct it until 1996. It was then that Mark Rosheim published an independent study of the robot, followed by a joint enterprise with the Florence Institute and Museum of the History of Science which mounted an exhibition with an entire section dedicated to Rosheim’s research on the subject. However, it was only in 2002 that Rosheim built a complete physical model for a BBC documentary. Since then, many exhibitions and museums of da Vinci’s models have included a soldier on wheels labeled, “Leonardo’s robot”.
Mechanical arm
Researchers have classified the robotic arm by showing its industrial application, medical application, and technology, e.t.c. It has been first introduced in the late 1930s by William Pollard and Harold A. Roseland, where they developed a sprayer that had about five degrees of freedom and an electric control system. Pollard’s was called “first position controlling apparatus.” William Pollard never designed or built his arm, but it was a base for other inventors in the future.
Leonardo (robot)
Leonardo is a 2.5 foot social robot, the first created by the Personal Robots Group of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Its development is credited to Cynthia Breazeal. The body is by Stan Winston Studios, leaders in animatronics. Its body was completed in 2002. It was the most complex robot the studio had ever attempted as of 2001. Other contributors to the project include NevenVision, Inc., Toyota, NASA’s Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, and the Navy Research Lab. It was created to facilitate the study of human–robot interaction and collaboration. A DARPA Mobile Autonomous Robot Software (MARS) grant, Office of Naval Research Young Investigators Program grant, "Digital Life", and "Things that Think" consortia have partially funded the project. The MIT Media Lab Robotic Life Group, who also studied Robonaut 1, set out to create a more sophisticated social-robot in Leonardo. They gave Leonardo a different visual tracking system and programs based on infant psychology that they hope will make for better human-robot collaboration. One of the goals of the project was to make it possible for untrained humans to interact with and teach the robot much more quickly with fewer repetitions. Leonardo was awarded a spot in "Wired Magazine’s" 50 Best Robots Ever list in 2006.
Robotic art
In the thirteenth century AD, Badi Al-Zaman'Isma'il Al-Razzaz Al-Jazari was a Muslim inventor who devoted himself to mechanical engineering. Like Hero, he experimented with water clocks and other hydraulic mechanisms. Al-Jaziri’s life's work culminated in a book which he called "The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices", completed in 1206 AD, and often known simply as "Automata". In Europe, also in the thirteenth century, Villard de Honnecourt is known to have built mechanical angels for the French court, and in the fifteenth century Johannes Muller built both a working mechanical eagle and a fly.
Robot
The first electronic autonomous robots with complex behaviour were created by William Grey Walter of the Burden Neurological Institute at Bristol, England in 1948 and 1949. He wanted to prove that rich connections between a small number of brain cells could give rise to very complex behaviors – essentially that the secret of how the brain worked lay in how it was wired up. His first robots, named "Elmer" and "Elsie", were constructed between 1948 and 1949 and were often described as "tortoises" due to their shape and slow rate of movement. The three-wheeled tortoise robots were capable of phototaxis, by which they could find their way to a recharging station when they ran low on battery power.
Haile (robot)
Haile (pronounced Hi-lee) is a robot percussionist developed by the Georgia Institute of Technology that listens to music in real time and creates an accompanying beat. The robot was designed in 2006 by Georgia Tech's professor of musical technology, Gil Weinberg. He and one of his graduate students, Scott Driscoll, created the robot to be able to "listen like a human, [and] improvise like a robot" (Weinberg). Haile "listens" through a microphone mounted on the drum and analyzes the sound, separating it into beats, rhythms, pitches and several other qualities. Detecting changes in these qualities helps Haile to assume either a leading or following style of play, roles that define the robot's collaborative abilities. Haile was also the first robot to create an acoustic percussion experience rather than play music through speakers. Its anthropomorphic design, which gives it movable arms that can move in any direction, allow it to create this acoustic music.
Robot jockey
The government of Qatar initiated development of the robots at the beginning of 2001. The first successful model was made in 2003 by Stanely in co-ordination with Rashid Ali Ibrahim from the Qatar Scientific Club. At the end of 2003, the design, with a revised analysis, was tendered to Swiss robotics firm K-Team. Initial problems faced by the design team, led by Alexandre Colot, included the fact that the camels were conditioned to the use of human jockeys. Early designs confused or frightened the camels. The designs were modified to include more human-like features, including a mannequin-like face, sunglasses, hats, racing silks and even traditional perfumes used by human jockeys. Other technical issues included the conditions that the robots and the computers would be put under: the high temperatures of a dusty desert environment along with a fast-moving and uneven ride. The first successful official race featuring robotic jockeys was conducted in Qatar by 2005. The robots are aluminum-framed with a "thorax" about the size of a large book and contain small hinged arms that control the whip and the reins. The robot can also monitor and transmit the speed and heart rate of the camel.
Robot Patent
The Robot Patent is an English-language scholarly term for the imperial decrees (patents) in the 1700s abolishing compulsory labor (robot) of serfs, issued by Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, who had carried out a register of all land with a division between peasant and noble holdings.
Joseph II outlawed the buying of 'rustic' land by the nobility and at the same time giving the rusticalists security of tenure. His motive was to prevent the increase in 'dominical' land, which paid fewer taxes to the government. This led to the survival of the peasantry, with rustic land still having the robot. In 1789 it was abolished by Joseph II, however Leopold II restored it when his brother Joseph II died in 1790. The abolition of robot during the Revolutions of 1848 broke the last legal tie which held the peasants to the land, and was seen as a great victory by the peasants.
Leonardo's robot
Leonardo's robot, or Leonardo's mechanical knight (Italian: "Robot di Leonardo" or "Automa cavaliere", lit. "Automaton knight") , was a humanoid automaton designed and possibly constructed by Leonardo da Vinci around the year 1495.
Robot
The term comes from a Czech word, "robota", meaning "forced labor"; the word 'robot' was first used to denote a fictional humanoid in a 1920 play "R.U.R." "(Rossumovi Univerzální Roboti - Rossum's Universal Robots)" by the Czech writer, Karel Čapek but it was Karel's brother Josef Čapek who was the word's true inventor. Electronics evolved into the driving force of development with the advent of the first electronic autonomous robots created by William Grey Walter in Bristol, England in 1948, as well as Computer Numerical Control (CNC) machine tools in the late 1940s by John T. Parsons and Frank L. Stulen. The first commercial, digital and programmable robot was built by George Devol in 1954 and was named the Unimate. It was sold to General Motors in 1961 where it was used to lift pieces of hot metal from die casting machines at the Inland Fisher Guide Plant in the West Trenton section of Ewing Township, New Jersey.
Albert HUBO
Albert HUBO is a humanoid robot, based on the HUBO, but with an animatronic head in the likeness of Albert Einstein. Introduced in 2005, Albert HUBO is the world's first walking humanoid robot with an android head. It was developed by Joon-Ho Oh of KAIST in conjunction with Hanson Robotics, who developed the head. Albert HUBO served as the ambassador of "DYNAMIC KOREA", an initiative by the government of South Korea to rebrand and promote its technology internationally. Albert HUBO is capable of making many facial expressions and interacting with people.
Robot-assisted surgery
The first robot to assist in surgery was the "Arthrobot", which was developed and used for the first time in Vancouver in 1983. Intimately involved were biomedical engineer Dr. James McEwen, Geof Auchinleck, a UBC engineering physics grad, and Dr. Brian Day as well as a team of engineering students. The robot was used in an orthopaedic surgical procedure on 12 March 1984, at the UBC Hospital in Vancouver. Over 60 arthroscopic surgical procedures were performed in the first 12 months, and a 1985 National Geographic video on industrial robots, "The Robotics Revolution", featured the device. Other related robotic devices developed at the same time included a surgical scrub nurse robot, which handed operative instruments on voice command, and a medical laboratory robotic arm. A YouTube video entitled "Arthrobot" illustrates some of these in operation.
Josef Čapek
Josef Čapek (; 23 March 1887 – April 1945) was a Czech artist who was best known as a painter, but who was also noted as a writer and a poet. He invented the word robot, which was introduced into literature by his brother, Karel Čapek.
Animatronics
In 1515, Leonardo da Vinci designed and built the Automata Lion, one of the earliest described animatrons. The mechanical lion was presented by Giuliano de’ Medici of Florence to Francois I, King of France as a symbol of an alliance between France and Florence. The Automata Lion was rebuilt in 2009 according to contemporary descriptions and da Vinci's own drawings of the mechanism. Prior to this, da Vinci had designed and exhibited a mechanical knight at a celebration hosted by Ludovico Sforza at the court of Milan in 1495. The 'robot' was capable of standing, sitting, opening its visor and moving its arms. The drawings were rediscovered in the 1950s and a functional replica was later built.
Computer art
One of the first robot painters was AARON, an artificial intelligence/artist developed by Professor Harold Cohen, UCSD, in the mid-1970s. Another pioneer in the field, Ken Goldberg of UC Berkeley created an 11' x 11' painting machine in 1992. Multiple other robotic painters exist though none are currently mass-produced.
Robot
The word "robot" was introduced to the public by the Czech interwar writer Karel Čapek in his play "R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots)", published in 1920. The play begins in a factory that uses a chemical substitute for protoplasm to manufacture living, simplified people called "robots." The play does not focus in detail on the technology behind the creation of these living creatures, but in their appearance they prefigure modern ideas of androids, creatures who can be mistaken for humans. These mass-produced workers are depicted as efficient but emotionless, incapable of original thinking and indifferent to self-preservation. At issue is whether the robots are being exploited and the consequences of human dependence upon commodified labor (especially after a number of specially-formulated robots achieve self-awareness and incite robots all around the world to rise up against the humans).
American robotics
Unimate was the first industrial robot,
which worked on a General Motors assembly line in New Jersey in 1961.
It was created by George Devol in the 1950s using his original patents. Devol, together with Joseph F. Engelberger started Unimation, the world's first robot manufacturing company.
Robotics
According to the "Oxford English Dictionary", the word "robotics" was first used in print by Isaac Asimov, in his science fiction short story ""Liar!"", published in May 1941 in "Astounding Science Fiction". Asimov was unaware that he was coining the term; since the science and technology of electrical devices is "electronics", he assumed "robotics" already referred to the science and technology of robots. In some of Asimov's other works, he states that the first use of the word "robotics" was in his short story "Runaround" (Astounding Science Fiction, March 1942), where he introduced his concept of The Three Laws of Robotics. However, the original publication of "Liar!" predates that of "Runaround" by ten months, so the former is generally cited as the word's origin.
Liar! (short story)
"Liar!" is a science fiction short story by American writer Isaac Asimov. It first appeared in the May 1941 issue of "Astounding Science Fiction" and was reprinted in the collections "I, Robot" (1950) and "The Complete Robot" (1982). It was Asimov's third published positronic robot story. Although the word "robot" was introduced to the public by Czech writer Karel Čapek in his 1920 play "R.U.R." (Rossum's Universal Robots), Asimov's story "Liar!" contains the first recorded use of the word "robotics" according to the "Oxford English Dictionary". The events of this short story are also mentioned in the novel "The Robots of Dawn" written by the same author.
Robot
Fears and concerns about robots have been repeatedly expressed in a wide range of books and films. A common theme is the development of a master race of conscious and highly intelligent robots, motivated to take over or destroy the human race.
"Frankenstein" (1818), often called the first science fiction novel, has become synonymous with the theme of a robot or android advancing beyond its creator.
Elmer and Elsie (robots)
Elmer and Elsie (ELectroMEchanical Robot, Light-Sensitive) were two electronic robots that were built in the late 1940s by neurobiologist William Grey Walter. They were the first robots in history that were programmed to "think" the way biological brains do and meant to have free will. Elmer and Elsie were often labeled as tortoises because of how they were shaped and the manner in which they moved. They were capable of phototaxis which is the movement that occurs in response to light stimulus.
History of robots
The P3 humanoid robot was revealed by Honda in 1998 as a part of the company's continuing humanoid project. 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. Honda revealed the most advanced result of their humanoid project in 2000, named ASIMO. ASIMO can run, walk, communicate with humans, recognise faces, environment, voices and posture, and interact with its environment. Sony also revealed its Sony Dream Robots, small humanoid robots in development for entertainment. In October 2000, the United Nations estimated that there were 742,500 industrial robots in the world, with more than half of them being used in Japan.
Robots in literature
While Karel Čapek's play introduced the word "robot" into languages around the globe but he later wrote a letter to the Oxford English Dictionary of etymology in which he named his brother, painter and writer Josef Čapek, as its true inventor. In an article in the Czech Lidové noviny in 1933 he also explains that he originally wanted to call the creatures "laboři" from the Latin word "labor". Karel found the word too bookish and sought advice from Josef who suggested to call them "robots". The word, which is always capitalized in Čapek's play, derives from "robota" which means "drudgery" in Czech and means "work" in Slovak.)
Susan Calvin
According to Asimov's fictional history of robotics, Susan Calvin was born in 1982, the same year that US Robots and Mechanical Men was incorporated. At 16, she wrote the first of many papers on robotics, a Physics-1 paper entitled "Practical Aspects of Robotics". This was after attending a Psycho-Math seminar at which Dr Alfred Lanning of US Robots demonstrated the first mobile robot to be equipped with a voice. As quoted in "I, Robot"; "Susan said nothing at that seminar; took no part in the hectic discussion period that followed. She was a frosty girl, plain and colorless, who protected herself against a world she disliked by a mask-like expression and a hypertrophy of intellect. But as she watched and listened, she felt the stirrings of a cold enthusiasm".
History of robots
In World War I remote control weapons were used, based on the work of Nikola Tesla, who had constructed an electrical boat that could be remotely controlled by radio.
Robot
The word robotics, used to describe this field of study, was coined by the science fiction writer Isaac Asimov. Asimov created the ""Three Laws of Robotics"" which are a recurring theme in his books. These have since been used by many others to define laws used in fiction. (The three laws are pure fiction, and no technology yet created has the ability to understand or follow them, and in fact most robots serve military purposes, which run quite contrary to the first law and often the third law. "People think about Asimov's laws, but they were set up to point out how a simple ethical system doesn't work. If you read the short stories, every single one is about a failure, and they are totally impractical," said Dr. Joanna Bryson of the University of Bath.)