Pushes the boundary on the level of intelligence and capability for many forms of
autonomous, semi-autonomous and teleoperated machines.
IC-7900 Computacin y Sociedad
M.Sc. Gerardo Brenes Trejos
Robotics And Automation: History
One of the first robots was the clepsydra or water clock,
which was made in 250 B.C. It was created by Ctesibius of
Alexandria, a Greek physicist and inventor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYOkQpiZNYg
The automata of Ancient Greece were intended as toys or
tools for demonstrating basic scientific principles, including
those built by Hero of Alexandria (sometimes known as
Heron). When his writings on hydraulics, pneumatics, and
mechanics were translated into Latin in the sixteenth
century, Heros readers initiated reconstruction of his
machines, which included siphons, a fire engine, a water
organ, and various steam-powered devices.
IC-7900 Computacin y Sociedad
M.Sc. Gerardo Brenes Trejos
Robotics And Automation: History
Al-Jazari is credited for the first recorded designs of a programmable automaton in
the 13th century as well as a set of humanoid automata.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZzY37BeORs
Villard de Honnecourt, in his 1230s sketchbook, show plans for animal automata and
an angel that perpetually turns to face the sun.
Descartes when he suggested that the bodies of animals are nothing more than
complex machines
Seventeenth-century France was the birthplace of those ingenious mechanical toys
that were to become prototypes for the engines of the industrial revolution.
The period 1860 to 1910 is known as "The Golden Age of Automata". During this
period many small family based companies of Automata makers thrived in Paris.
IC-7900 Computacin y Sociedad
M.Sc. Gerardo Brenes Trejos
Robotics And Automation: History
The earliest remote control vehicles were built by Nikola Tesla in the
1890's. Tesla is best known as the inventor of AC electric power,
radio (before Marconi), induction motors, Tesla coils, and other
electrical devices.
Other early robots (1940's - 50's) were Grey Walter's "Elsie the
tortoise" ("Machina speculatrix") and the Johns Hopkins "beast.
William of Ockham (1285-1349) discovered the foundations for what were to become known as DeMorgan
Transformations, which were described by Augustus DeMorgan some 500 years later.
The first mechanical calculator may have been conceived by Leonardo da Vinci almost one hundred and fifty
years earlier than Pascal's machine (1500)
The first real logic machine, called the Stanhope Demonstrator, was invented in the early 1800s by the British
scientist and statesman Charles Stanhope.
In 1822, Babbage proposed building a machine called the Difference Engine to automatically calculate
mathematical tables.
Lotfi Zadeh publishes his seminal work on fuzzy sets in 1965 (fuzzy set theory)
M-5 Computer