A Brief History of Industrial Robotics in the 20th Century

TLDR

Industrial robotics emerged as a pivotal field in the 20th century, revolutionizing industrial environments within a few decades. The paper presents a concise history of 20th‑century industrial robotics and proposes a four‑generation classification of robot evolution. The authors describe each generation’s characteristics, trace feature evolution, and highlight key milestones and representative robots from the 1950s to 1999. Key milestones and representative robots from the 1950s to 1999 are highlighted as defining moments in industrial robotics history.

Abstract

Industrial robotics is a branch of robotics that gained paramount importance in the last century. The presence of robots totally revolutionized the industrial environment in just a few decades. In this paper, a brief history of industrial robotics in the 20th century will be presented, and a proposal for classifying the evolution of industrial robots into four generations is set forward. The characteristics of the robots belonging to each generation are mentioned, and the evolution of their features is described. The most significant milestones of the history of industrial robots, from the 1950’s to the end of the century, are mentioned, together with a description of the most representative industrial robots that were designed and manufactured in those decades.