The 7 Robots That Shaped The Industry, And The Engineers Who Created Them

The modern-day robotics industry is a multi-faceted, dynamic force of development and innovation, so we’re taking a look at the robots that brought us here, and the engineers behind them.

Unimate #001 — Joseph Engelberger

Not only did Unimate bring robotics to their first home on automotive production lines, but its creator Joseph Engelberger is widely considered the father of the robotics industry itself. From 1956 to 1959, Engelberger and American inventor George Devol, worked on their first prototype of an automated Programmed Article Transfer device (a patent that Engelberger already had pending by the time he met Devol). The result, Unimate #0001, is generally recognised as the first industrial robot. The arm went on to revolutionise the manufacturing industry after its first adoption by General Motors.

The Stanford Arm — Victor Scheinman

The Stanford Arm would build on Unimate’s foundations and further evolve the automobile assembly line. The first computer-controlled, electronically powered robotic arm, The Stanford Arm championed versatility in the industrial robotics sector. Its multi-programmable functions and six degrees of freedom allowed it to integrate quickly into the assembly line and branch further out into other tasks.

The Stanford Arm was created by Victor Scheinman, who later founded Vicarm, Inc. in 1973 in order to further develop his invention. After the sale of his company to Unimation, he would work alongside Unimate developers to create the Programmable Universal Machine for Assembly (PUMA).

WABOT-1 — Ichiro Kato

In 1972, the world’s first full-scale android came to fruition. The result of 5 years of work from Ichiro Kato, the WABOT-1 was able to walk with its legs, grip with its arms, and ‘see’ using two cameras. The premise was born from the robot’s presence on the automated production line and developed in accordance with the idea that as robots will be doing the work of the human, they should process information and act upon that information in the same way. The humanoid result was able to communicate with a human in Japanese as well as assess distances and directions of objects in its field of view while it worked.

WABOT-1 represents a pinnacle in humanoid robot development; the moment when machinery became communicative and “intelligent” in their most primitive forms. Kato himself launched the project alongside Waseda University after investing himself in studies of such humanoid designs. The innovation no doubt contributed to the social and cultural understanding and representation of robotics, leading to increased acceptance and decreased fear at critical points during the industry’s later growth.

ASIMO — Satoshi Shigemi

At its time of creation, ASIMO was the most advanced humanoid robot in the world. Crucially, however, the ASIMO was widely publicised in the years following its unveiling. Resultingly, the Honda ASIMO robot has become an icon for humanoid robotics over the years, spurring a number of developments and debates around the future of the industry and its relation with humans. Before ASIMO, robotic inventions were curtained off behind lab walls and selective trade displays. ASIMO’s global fame was incremental to building recognition and easing fears surrounding the impending domestic robot surge.

After the E-Series and P-Series of android experimentation, Satoshi Shigemi was called in to act as project leader and senior engineer of the ASIMO project.

Roomba — Joe Jones

Joe Jones brought robots into the home with his Roomba invention. The first commercially successful domestic cleaning robot, Roomba wowed early adopters with its range of sensors allowing it to accurately determine where to clean and how. Roomba’s ancestors were lego-built creations named “Rug Warriors”, entered by Jones into the Robot Olympics in the 1980s, a far cry from the final release in 2002 and certainly miles behind the connected, adaptive cleaners we have today. The Roomba provided an early indication of the willingness of consumers to invest in robotic tech for their homes, an indication that spawned many of the other robotic products we use today.

BigDog — Marc Raibert / Dr. Martin Beuhler

Initially created for the US Military, BigDog was designed to carry human soldiers through terrain unsuitable for wheels. Capable of running at 4mph and carrying 150kg of additional weight, BigDog’s real draw was its dynamic stabilisation ability which allowed it to remain upright regardless of terrain complexity. The project lasted ten years between 2005 and 2015 when, due to the petrol-powered engine, BigDog was considered too loud to be used in combat.

BigDog became a cultural phenomenon in its development lifetime, further reinforcing the power of robotics in the social mind. However, it’s the finer aspects of BigDog’s design that give it its place in the history books. Its approach to kinetic design, as well as dynamic balancing, has yielded a number of innovations even in the few short years since the project’s finalisation. Marc Raibert, founder of Boston Dynamics, the team behind BigDog, is often famed for the development of the quadruped. However, Dr Martin Beuhler headed the project and received a Joseph F. Engelberger Award from the Robotics Industries Association for his work.

Sophia — David Hanson

While the actual intelligence level of Sophia is often debated, it is widely acknowledged that she remains one of the most advanced examples of AI we’ve seen. If ASIMO and BigDog pushed robotics into the public eye, Sophia gave it a prime time spot. The response to Sophia’s uncanny resemblance to living humans, as well as her perceived intelligence, was phenomenal, with widespread media appeal. The first robot to receive citizenship of a country, Sophia is likely to exist as a landmark creation in the history of robotics.