Even though everyone is familiar about Robots, no one can ever give a
proper definition to the word “Robots”. The origin of this idea of ‘artificial
humanoid machine’ is still unknown. It is a bit crazy fact that, the idea of
developing some electronic machine that can replace many of the manual
hazardous labors, definitely originated in the mind of a lazy guy! It was developed for the sake of simplifying
some complex tasks and to manage hazardous working environments.
Evidences shows that, the idea of robots originated in the period of
ancient civilization itself. In ancient Greece, many of the scientists and
philosophers including Archytas and Hero of Alexandria, introduced some
discussions about controllable machines that can perform certain tasks and even
invented some small automated machines. In the same period, similar kind of
inventions and theories were becoming popular in ancient China and later on, in
other places too. But all those were just some machines that could perform some
simple dedicated tasks and they cannot be however, classified under the
category of robots for what we define it today.
Later, in the renaissance period, more developed forms of machines were
introduced that could perform certain hazardous tasks and the basic ideas of today’s
‘automated humanoid machine’ were developed then. But all of them didn’t result
in any successful working models and remained as just theories and researches.
In fact, some simpler models of remote controllable devices which can be termed
as the predecessors of today’s robots were developed in this period. Even
though they had resemblance to the present day robots, they had several
drawbacks.
In the 17th and 18th
centuries, there were wide discussions and researches based on robotics and
many of the contemporary scientists put forward more automated machines
including mechanical duck, artificial pigeon, and certain remotely controlled machines
that had some resemblance to human beings.
We could definitely state that this branch of science strengthened in
the 20th century. The first robot developed for the purpose of doing
useful work, Televox, was introduced in 1926, by Westinghouse Electric Corporation.
It was followed by a series of such simpler robots, all manufactured by the
same company. Then, several such inventions were made worldwide in the same
period for different purposes.
The first electronic automated robots were developed in 1940’s. The
modern Robot, the digitally operating and program controllable one, ‘Unimate’
was developed by George Devol. It was later used for commercial purposes by
installing it in an industrial plant in New Jersey. Devol took the patent for
the first digitally operated robotic arm and it was later declared as the
foundation of modern robotics industry. And later on, more and more new inventions
were made in this field. Still,
researches are going on, in Robotics, to meet more challenging and complex requirements.
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