Editing Industrial robot (section)

== History ==
The earliest known industrial robot, conforming to the ISO definition was completed by 
"Bill" Griffith P. Taylor in 1937 and published in [[Meccano Magazine]], March 1938.<ref>{{cite journal|title=An Automatic Block-Setting Crane|journal=Meccano Magazine|date=March 1938|volume=23|issue=3|page=172|publisher=Meccano|location=Liverpool UK}}</ref><ref name=Taylor>{{cite book|last=Taylor|first=Griffith P.|title=The Robot Gargantua|year=1995|publisher=Constructor Quarterly|location=Gargantua|editor=Robin Johnson}}</ref> The crane-like device was built almost entirely using [[Meccano]] parts, and powered by a single electric motor.  Five axes of movement were possible, including ''grab'' and ''grab rotation''. Automation was achieved using punched paper tape to energise solenoids, which would facilitate the movement of the crane's control levers. The [[robot]] could stack wooden blocks in pre-programmed patterns. The number of motor revolutions required for each desired movement was first plotted on graph paper. This information was then transferred to the paper tape, which was also driven by the robot's single motor. Chris Shute built a complete replica of the robot in 1997.

[[Image:George C Devol Color Photo.jpg|thumb|left|George Devol, {{Circa|1982}}]]
[[George Devol]] applied for the first robotics [[patent]]s in 1954 (granted in 1961).  The first company to produce a robot was [[Unimation]], founded by Devol and [[Joseph Engelberger|Joseph F. Engelberger]] in 1956. Unimation robots were also called ''programmable transfer machines'' since their main use at first was to transfer objects from one point to another, less than a dozen feet or so apart. They used [[hydraulics|hydraulic]] [[actuator]]s and were programmed in ''joint [[coordinate system|coordinates]]'', i.e. the angles of the various joints were stored during a teaching phase and replayed in operation.  They were accurate to within 1/10,000 of an inch<ref>{{cite web |title=International Federation of Robotics |url=https://ifr.org/robot-history |website=IFR International Federation of Robotics |access-date=16 December 2018 |language=en}}</ref>  (note: although accuracy is not an appropriate measure for robots, usually evaluated in terms of repeatability - see later).  Unimation later licensed their technology to [[Kawasaki Heavy Industries]] and [[GKN]], manufacturing [[Unimate]]s in Japan and England respectively.  For some time, Unimation's only competitor was [[Cincinnati Milacron]] Inc. of [[Ohio]]. This changed radically in the late 1970s when several big Japanese conglomerates began producing similar industrial robots.

In 1969 [[Victor Scheinman]] at [[Stanford University]] invented the [[Stanford arm]], an all-electric, 6-axis articulated robot designed to permit an [[arm solution]]. This allowed it accurately to follow arbitrary paths in space and widened the potential use of the robot to more sophisticated applications such as assembly and welding. Scheinman then designed a second arm for the [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology|MIT]] [[Artificial intelligence|AI]] Lab, called the "MIT arm." Scheinman, after receiving a fellowship from Unimation to develop his designs, sold those designs to Unimation who further developed them with support from [[General Motors]] and later marketed it as the [[Programmable Universal Machine for Assembly]] (PUMA).

Industrial robotics took off quite quickly in Europe, with both [[ABB Group|ABB Robotics]] and [[KUKA|KUKA Robotics]] bringing robots to the market in 1973. ABB Robotics (formerly ASEA) introduced IRB 6, among the world's first ''commercially available'' all electric micro-processor controlled robot. The first two IRB 6 robots were sold to Magnusson in Sweden for grinding and polishing pipe bends and were installed in production in January 1974. Also in 1973 KUKA Robotics built its first robot, known as [[FAMULUS]],<ref>[http://www.kuka-robotics.com/en/company/group/milestones/1973.htm KUKA-Roboter.de: 1973 The First KUKA Robot] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090220193437/http://www.kuka-robotics.com/en/company/group/milestones/1973.htm |date=2009-02-20 }} English, 28th of March 2010</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.ifr.org/uploads/media/History_of_Industrial_Robots_online_brochure_by_IFR_2012.pdf |title=History of Industrial Robots |access-date=2012-10-27 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121224213437/http://www.ifr.org/uploads/media/History_of_Industrial_Robots_online_brochure_by_IFR_2012.pdf |archive-date=2012-12-24 }}</ref> also one of the first articulated robots to have six electromechanically driven axes.

Interest in robotics increased in the late 1970s and many US companies entered the field, including large firms like [[General Electric]], and [[General Motors]] (which formed [[joint venture]] [[FANUC Robotics]] with [[FANUC]] LTD of Japan). U.S. [[startup companies]] included [[Automatix]] and [[Adept Technology]], Inc. At the height of the robot boom in 1984, Unimation was acquired by [[Westinghouse Electric (1886)|Westinghouse Electric Corporation]] for 107 million U.S. dollars. Westinghouse sold Unimation to [[Stäubli Faverges SCA]] of [[France]] in 1988, which is still making articulated robots for general industrial and [[cleanroom]] applications and even bought the robotic division of [[Robert Bosch GmbH|Bosch]] in late 2004.

Only a few non-Japanese companies ultimately managed to survive in this market, the major ones being: [[Adept Technology]], [[Stäubli]], the [[Sweden|Swedish]]-[[Switzerland|Swiss]] company [[ABB Asea Brown Boveri]], the [[Germany|German]] company [[KUKA|KUKA Robotics]] and the [[Italy|Italian]] company [[Comau]].