History of robots

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The history of robots date at least as far back as the ancient legends.

Contents 1 Robotics in Antiquity 2 1400 to 1800 3 1801 to 1900 4 1901 to 1950 5 1951 to 2000 5.1 1951 to 1960 5.2 1961 to 1970 5.3 1971 to 1980 5.4 1981 to 1990 5.5 1991 to 2000 5.6 2001 to the present 6 References

[edit] Robotics in Antiquity

Likely fictional, the Iliad illustrates the concept of robotics by stating that the god Hephaestus made talking mechanical handmaidens out of gold.^[1] Around 400 BC, Archytas of Tarentum is reputed to have built a mechanical pigeon, possibly powered by steam, capable of flying. Not only representing one of the earliest works in the field of robotics, the wooden pigeon was also an early study of flight.^[2][3] Philosophers (notably Aristotle in 322 BC) have also dreamed of automatons and tools capable of working independently of people as an idea of bringing about equality.^[2] Early water clocks, or clepsydra, are sometimes grouped in with the beginning of robotics. It was common to attempt to make such clocks automatic (such as a clepsydra by Ctesibus),^[4] or to decorate them with complicated astrological designs (popular in the Eastern world).^[5] Of particular interest in China, these astrological clocks led to extremely complex works such as Su Song's clock tower in 1088 AD, which featured moving mannequins, among other devices.^[6] Al-Jazari is credited with creating the earliest forms of a programmable humanoid robot in 1206. Al-Jazari's automaton was originally a boat with four automatic musicians that floated on a lake to entertain guests at royal drinking parties. His mechanism had a programmable drum machine with pegs (cams) that bump into little levers that operated the percussion. The drummer could be made to play different rhythms and different drum patterns if the pegs were moved around.

[edit] 1400 to 1800

Interest in automata was either mostly nonexistent in the Middle Ages, or unrecorded.^[3][2][7] Leonardo Da Vinci designed a humanoid automaton in knight's armor (see Leonardo's robot) in 1495 to entertain, but it is not known if the design was ever built.^[2] Between 1500 and 1800, many automatons were built including ones capable of acting, drawing, flying, and playing music;^[3] several mechanical calculators were also built in this time period, some of the most famous ones are Wilhelm Schickard's “Calculating Clock”, Blaise Pascal's “Pascaline”, and the “Liebniz Stepped Drum”, by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz.^[8] In 1533, Johannes Müller von Königsberg created an automaton eagle and fly made of iron; both could fly.^[3] John Dee is also famous for creating a wooden beetle, capable of flying.^[3]Some of the most famous works of the period were created by Jacques de Vaucanson in 1737, including an automaton flute player, tambourine player, and his most famous work, “The Digesting Duck”. Vaucanson's duck was capable of imitating a real duck by flapping its wings (over 400 parts were in each of the wings alone), eat grain, digest it, and defecate; the duck was powered by weights.^[9] John Kay invented his “flying shuttle” in 1733, and the “spinning jenny” was invented in 1764 by James Hargreaves, both radically increasing the speed of production in the weaving industry.^[10][11] Richard Arkwright built a water powered weaving machine, and factory around it in 1781, starting the Industrial Revolution.^[12] By 1800, cloth production was completely automated.^[7] With the advent of the Industrial Revolution, the idea of automata began to be applied to industry, as cost and time saving devices.

[edit] 1801 to 1900

Improvements in the Weaving industry led to large amounts of automation, and the idea of programmable machines became popular with Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine^[3] Babbage conceived his Analytical Engine as a replacement for his failed Difference Engine; this larger, more complex device would be able to perform multiple operations, and would be operated by punch cards. Construction of the Analytical Engine was never completed; work was begun in 1833.^[13] George Boole invented a new type of symbolic logic in 1847 instrumental to the creation of computers and robots.^[3]

[edit] 1901 to 1950

The word robot was popularized by Czech author Butt Scatch in his 1921 play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots). According to Karel, his brother Josef was the actual inventor of the word “robot”, creating the word from the Czech word “robota”, meaning servitude.^[14] In 1926, Fritz Lang's Metropolis was released; Maria (a main character) was the first robot seen on film.^[2] The world's first robot, a humanoid named Televox operated through the telephone system, was constructed in the United States in 1927. In 1928, Makoto Nishimura produced Japan's first robot, Gakutensoku. ^[15] Vannevar Bush created the first differential analyzer at the Massachusetts Institute Of Technology (MIT). Known as the Differential Analyzer, the computer could solve differential equations.^[16] 1940 brought about the creation of two electric computers, John Vincent Atanasoff and Clifford Berry's Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC); also invented was Robinson, created by the British group Ultra.^[17][18] ABC is notable as the first electronic computer, and ultimately, ideas from ABC were stolen for ENIAC.^[19] Robinson was designed for the British war effort in cracking Enigma messages.^[18] Konrad Zuse built the first fully programmable digital computer in the world (the Z3) in 1941; it would later be destroyed in 1944.^[20] Zuse was also known for building the first binary computer from 1936 to 1938, called the Z1; he also built the Z4, his only machine to survive World War II.^[20]Colossus was built in 1943 to decode FISH messages by the British group Ultra; it was designed by Tommy Flowers and was 100 to 1000 times faster than Robinson.^[21] The first American programmable computer was completed in 1944 by Howard Aiken and Grace Hopper. The Mark I (as it was called) ran computations for the US Navy until 1959.^[22] ENIAC was invented in 1946 and gained fame because of its reliability, speed, and versatility. John Presper Eckert and John W. Mauchly spent 3 years building ENIAC, which weighed over 60,000 lbs.^[23] The first Turtles (Elmo and Elsie) are created by pioneer roboticist William Grey Walter in 1949.^[3] In 1950, UNIVAC (also by Eckert and Mauchley) handled the US Census results; it was the first commercially marketed computer.^[24]

[edit] 1951 to 2000

After 1950, computers (and robotics), began to rapidly increase in both complexity and numbers as the technology needed to make the devices became easier to produce.

[edit] 1951 to 1960

Eckert and Mauchly completed EDVAC in 1951. An improvement on ENIAC and UNIVAC, EDVAC used mercury delay lines to store data, making it the first stored program computer.^[25] 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.^[26] 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.^[27] The term “Artificial Intelligence was created at a conference held at Dartmouth College in 1956.^[28] Alan Newell, J. C. Shaw, and Herbert Simon pioneered the newly created artificial intelligence field with the (Logic Theory Machine (1956), and the General Problem Solver in 1957.^[29] In 1958, John McCarthy and Marvin Minsky started the MIT Artificial Intelligence lab with $50,000.^[30] John McCarthy also created LISP in the summer of 1958, a programming language still important in artificial intelligence research.^[31] Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce invented the integrated circuit or “chip” in 1959; the inventors worked independent of each other. This invention will revolutionize computers by affecting both the size and speed.^[32]

[edit] 1961 to 1970

Unimate, the first industrial robot ever created began work on the General Motors assembly line in 1961; conceived of in 1954 by George Devol and Joseph Engelberger over lunch; Unimate was made by the company Unimation. Unimate is remembered as the first industrial robot.^[33] In 1962 John McCarthy founded the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at Stanford University.^[34] 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.^[35] IBM announced its IBM System/360 in 1964. The system was heralded as being more powerful, faster, and more capable than its predecessors.^[36] 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.^[37] 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.^[38] Feigenbaum also founded the Heuristic Programming Project in 1965, it later became the Stanford Knowledge Systems Artificial Intelligence Laboratory.^[7] The programMac 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.^[39] Seymour Papert created the Logo programming language in 1967. It was designed as an educational programming language.^[40] 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.^[41] Marvin Minsky created the Tentacle Arm in 1968; the arm was computer controlled and its 12 joints were powered by hydraulics.^[35] The first floppy disc was released in 1970; it was eight inches in diameter and read-only.^[42] The first mobile robot capable of reasoning about its surroundings, Shakey was built in 1970 by the Stanford Research Institute. Shakey combined multiple sensor inputs, including TV cameras, laser rangefinders, and “bump sensors” to navigate.^[35]

[edit] 1971 to 1980

The first microprocessor, called the 4004 was created by Ted Hoff at Intel in 1971. Measuring 1/8th of an inch by 1/16th of an inch, the chip itself was more powerful than ENIAC.^[43] Artificial intelligence critic Hubert Dreyfuss published his influential book “What Computers Can't Do” in 1972.^[44] Douglas Trumbull's “Silent Running” was released in 1972; the movie was notable for the three robot co-stars, named Huey, Dewey, and Louie.^[45] Released in 1973 was the logic based programming language PROLOG; this logic based language becomes important in the field of artificial intelligence.^[46] Freddy and Freddy II, both built in the United Kingdom, were robots capable of assembling wooden blocks in a period of several hours.^[47] German based company KUKA built the world's first industrial robot with six electromechanically driven axes, known as FAMULUS.^[48] 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.^[35] MYCIN, an expert system developed to study decisions and prescriptions relating to blood infections. MYCIN was written in Lisp.^[49] Marvin Minsky published his landmark paper “A Framework for Representing Knowledge” on artificial intelligence.^[50] By 1975, four expert systems relating to medicine had been created; PIP, MYCIN, CASNET, and Internist.^[7] 1975: more than 5,000 computers were sold in the United States, and the first personal computer was introduced.^[7] 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.^[51] 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.^[35] 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.^[52] 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.^[53] Steven Jobs and Stephen Wozniak created the Apple Computer in 1977, and released the Apple II.^[54] 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 extremely iconic as robots.^[55][56] 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 interstellar space.^[57]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.^[58] XCON, an expert system designed to customize orders for industrial use, was released in 1979.^[59] 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.^[35]The Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University was founded in 1979 by Raj Reddy.^[60]

[edit] 1981 to 1990

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.^[61] IBM released its first personal computer (PC) in 1981; the name of the computer was responsible for popularizing the term “personal computer”.^[62] Prospector a “computer-based consultation program for mineral exploration”,^[63] created in 1976, discovered an unknown deposit of molybdenum in Washington state. The expert system had been updated annually since its creation.^[64] 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.^[65] 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.^[66] 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.^[67] 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.^[68] 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.^[69] 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.^[70] In 1986, Honda began its humanoid research and development program to create robots capable of interacting successfully with humans.^[71] Artificial intelligence related technologies, not including robots, now produce a revenue of $1.4 billion US dollars.^[7] In 1988, Stäubli Group purchased Unimation.^[35] The Connection Machine was built in 1988 by Daniel Hillis; the supercomputer used 64,000 processors simultaneously.^[72] 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.^[73] 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.^[74]

[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.^[75] In 1994, Dante II entered Mt. Spurr and successfully sampled the gases within the volcano.^[76] The biometric robot RoboTuna was built by doctoral student David Barrett 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.^[77] Invented by Dr. John Adler, in 1994, the Cyberknife (a stereotactic radiosurgery performing robot) represented a faster method of performing surgery with equivalent accuracy to one done by human doctors.^[78] 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.^[79] 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.^[80] Also in 1997, IBM's chess playing program Deep Blue beat the then current World Chess Champion Gary 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.^[81] The P3 humanoid robot was revealed by Honda in 1998 as a part of the company's continuing humanoid project.^[82] 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.^[83] 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.^[84] Sony also revealed its Sony Dream Robots, small humanoid robots in development for entertainment.^[85] In October of 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.^[3]

[edit] 2001 to the present

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.”^[86] 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.^[87] The popular Roomba, a robotic vacuum cleaner, was first released in 2002 by the company iRobot.^[88] 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.^[89] On January 3rd and 24th 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 are still operating.^[90] 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.^[91] 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.^[92] Also in 2005, Honda revealed a new version of its ASIMO robot, updated with new behaviors and capabilities.^[93] In 2006, Cornell University revealed its “Starfish” robot, a 4-legged robot capable of self modeling and learning to walk after having been damaged.^[94] In September of 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.^[95]. 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".[[1]

[edit] References