Robotics

200 BC app.

Ctesibus produced the first organ and water clocks with moving figures.

50 BC app.

The Greek tradition was revived by Marcus Vitruvius Pollio (90 -20 BC, who described several automata and developed the canon of proportions, which will become the basis of classical anatomical and architectural aesthetics. (5) (3)

100 AD app.

Hero of Alexandria detailed several automata that were used in theater and for religious purposes. He also designed automata that opened the gates on hydraulic principles.

1200 AD app.

reproduction Topkapi Museum(9)

Arab authors also designed complex mechanical arrangements. The most famous amongst them is Al-Jazari. He wrote Automata - which is considered the most important text for the study of the History of Technology. This book is richly illustrated and gives the state of the art of technology in the middle ages and shows how advanced technology in that time was compared with the western countries.(6)

1495

robot and design by Leonardo da Vinci

In approximately 1495, before he began work on the Last Supper, Leonardo designed and possibly built the first humanoid robot in Western civilization.(4) The robot, an outgrowth of his earliest anatomy and kinesiology studies recorded in the Codex Huygens, was designed according to the Vitruvian canon. This armored robot knight was designed to sit up, wave its arms, and move its head via a flexible neck while opening and closing its anatomically correct jaw. It may have made sounds to the accompaniment of automated drums. On the outside, the robot is dressed in a typical German-Italian suit of armor of the late fifteenth century. This robot would influence his later anatomical studies in which he modeled the human limbs with cords to simulate the tendons and muscles.(3)

1560

(10)
wooden monk automata appr. 1560

Here is a fine example of the technology of automata in the sixteenth century. Shown here is a wooden monk, appr 30 centimeters in heigth, with a crude lever and joints mechanism. The purpose of this puppet will remain guesswork, and how long it took to create it too. But with our contemporary tooling it would certainly take a few months to get this intricate machinery working. A scientist in historic tooling would probably give it a year, but to our opinion at least 2 years of trying and retrying. This prooves that making automata still went on during the ages. (the above pictures are taken at the Deutsches Museum at Munich in Germany, and the statuette stands behind very thick glass, that's why you see some reflection in the pictures)

1738

(11)
construction and detail of Vaucanson's Duck 1738

Vaucanson is one of the most known constructors of automata. The above shown 'Mechanical Duck' could actualy produce sound by means of some 'quack-quack mechanism' (flute) fed by bellows mounted beneath the duck.

1753

(11)
Knaus writing automata

Actually the very first writing automata, in the western world, was developed by Knaus in 1753. If you look closely to the top of this contraption you will observe some writing on a white rectangular piece of paper. And as was usual in these centuries, the ornaments were almost as important as the functionality of the machine itself.

1773

Pierre and Henry Louis Jaquet-Droz (Swiss) invented the first automaton that could write. Soon after that they build another automaton that drew a portrait of King Louis XV. Taking the word 'robot' in a broad sense, we might say that their machines were some of the first robots.

Louis XV drawing from a later draughtsman(2)

1810

front and back of Kaufmann's Trumpetteer 1810 (10)

The Mechanical Trumpetteer constructed by Friedrich Kaufmann in 1810. This is an example of a program (e.g. stepped drum) mounted into an automata to play a tune, like the European street organs. The notches mounted on the drum activated valves that let the air pass by 12 tongues. Which produced a kind of modulated sound. This sound will be modulated through a trumpet so it does sound like a trumpet The stepped drum and the bellows are powered by a spring mechanism that neede to be wound up, observe the crank laying at the bottom. The length of this automata is appr. 180 cm.

1970

Shakey, picture courtesy MIT

Shakey from MIT, Boston USA, could see and avoid obstacles

2000

Aibo, Sony, Japan(8)

Sony built Aibo. One of the first robots intended for the consumer market. It reacted on sounds and had some sort of preprogrammed behavior.

2002

Asimo, Honda Japan (7)

Honda's Asimo was the first robot that could walk independently with relatively smooth movements and could climb the stairs.