History of robotics
This Part of the WEBook describes the evolution of the different components of robotics science and technology (modelling, planning, sensing, control, and integration) since the “beginning” of robotics.
For economic or scientific purposes—or just for fun—mankind has, for centuries already, tried to make machines autonomously perform manipulative actions, and to mimic the human behaviour as closely as possible. However, only since the advent of the hydraulic and electric motors, and especially of the electronic computer, this automation of human abilities has become realistically feasible. Hence, a whole new science of making “mechanical slaves” has come into existence. Because man's imagination is always decades ahead of his capabilities, this science got its name long before it really became a scientific discipline worth the name: the robot appears on stage (literally) for the first time (1921) in the theatre play R.U.R. (Rosum's Universal Robots) by the Czech writer Karel Čapek. The Czech word robota means “regular forced labor of serfs—poor peasants on the land of their lords in a feudal society.” The word “Rosum” does not only represent the name of a person, but it also means “reason” in Czech as well. So, already in its first confrontation with the world, the robot shows both sides of machine intelligence: cheap and versatile labour, but also potential misuse and ethical problems. It's interesting to note that R.U.R.'s robots are the product of genetic engineering rather than mechatronic engineering: the robots are created from human genes from which all emotional factors have been removed (or rather, their creators were convinced they removed them all...).
The word robotics was coined by the Russian-born scientist and science fiction writer Isaac Asimov (1920-1992), in the early 1940s; again, much before any real robots existed.
Outside of the theatre, industrial robots were developed in the fifties and sixties; the designs that populate most of the automobile assembly plants were invented in the late sixties. The major developments took place in the American car industry (especially General Motors), and in the nuclear industry. The practically used industrial robots are quite different from the robots encountered in science fiction films—quite a disappointment in fact for most non-technical people. However, recently there is a growing interest for developing humanoid robots, which come much closer to our intuitive expectations.
Before 1950
TODO: add descriptions of automata from the Renaissance and later; telemanipulators in chemical/nuclear plants; external link
1950–1960
Advent of modern control theory, with first CNC machine.
1960–1965
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1965–1970
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1970–1975
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1975–1980
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1980–1985
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1985–1990
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1990–1995
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1995–2000
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