Engineers
George Devol
Robotics Engineering
Citation Formats
General Reference
APA Style
BibTeX
George Devol was an American inventor and engineer who built the first industrial robot. In 1954 he patented a programmable mechanical arm he called Unimate, designed to be reprogrammed for different tasks through a magnetic drum memory, and in 1961 the first Unimate was installed at a General Motors plant in New Jersey to handle hot die-cast metal parts, marking the start of industrial robotics. He co-founded Unimation, the first robotics company, with Joseph Engelberger to manufacture and sell the machines, launching an industry that transformed manufacturing worldwide.
Facts
Cross-Tradition Connections
In Field
Invented
Filed the first robotics patents in 1954 and, with Joseph Engelberger, founded Unimation in 1956, the first company to produce industrial robots; the earliest known industrial robot itself is credited to Griffith P. Taylor's 1937 Meccano device.
Sources
Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.
View At A Past Year
The atlas records no dated fact of its own for this entry, so there is no other year to choose.