Isaac Asimov and Unimate, the world’s first industrial robot (2024)

I wrote an article related to robots.

In this post, I will write about the world’s first industrial robot, Unimate.

When you hear the word “robot,” you may think of the humanoid robots in various science fiction works. And when you talk about such robots, you might think of a great science fiction writer named Issac Asimov. Anyone cannot ignore him.

The term “Robotics” in modern times was first used by Isaac Asimov in his short story “Liar!” which was published in 1941. The word “Three laws of Robotics” which are the principles to be complied with by humanoid robots were subsequently used in the 1942 short story “Runaround”.

First Law

A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

Second Law

A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

Third Law

A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Three laws of Robotics have made a tremendous impact not only on science fiction, but also on the research and development of actual robots. Honda’s humanoid robot, ASIMO, is named in honor of the great influence of Issac Asimov.

Not only humanoid robots, but also so-called industrial robotic arms have the origins in Asimov. An example of latest ones is like this.

It’s a robot that does Jenga. Now it has come to a level of performing the difficult tasks of Jenga with such elaborate movements. The first commercialized product of such industrial robotic arm, the Unimate, was developed in 1959.

Unimate was based on a mechanical arm design by the American inventor George Devol (later patented in 1961) and developed by Joseph Engelberger, who is called the father of robotics.

At a co*cktail party in 1956, Devol and Engelberger met, and Devol introduced his latest invention to Engelberger. The novelty of the device’s idea captured Engelberger, who was a fan of Issac Asimov’s science fiction novels. He was at the time a director of a subsidiary of a company called Condec Corp. They talked to the CEO and succeeded in getting him to fund the development. After about two years of development, they produced a prototype of Unimate №001.

In developing it, Engelberger wanted to reflect to robots the spirit of Asimov’s “Three Principles of Robotics” which is for serving people and not hurting them, much like the Hippocratic Oath. He set the goal that the robot should engage in tasks dangerous to humans.

His aim paid off. In 1959, the General Motors (GM) plant started using his Unimate for producing mold-cast products ( (die-cast products) in the process. The commands recorded in the robot’s memory (magnetic drum) were executed step by step so that the robots removed the die-cast products from the machine and welded it to the car body, which was a very painful labor to humans. This use case was highly evaluated within GM. In the two short years, approximately 450 Unimate units had been adopted.

Unimate’s reputation spread, and in 1966, Unimate was introduced on NBC’s popular late night TV show named The Tonight Show to people all over US. On live from the studio, Unimate put golf balls into a cup, poured beer into a glass, and conducted a live band of the show, that impressed viewers very much.

As its popularity grew, Engelberger attempted to expand its customer base beyond the United States. He granted a license to Nokia in Finland so that they built robots in Scandinavia and Eastern Europe. He also invited an audience of 400 Japanese executives in Tokyo who were interested in industrial robots and gave them a lecture. And then, he signed a license agreement with Kawasaki Heavy Industries (now Kawasaki Robotics) to roll out Unimate for the Asian market.

Back to GM, GM’s plants became the most automated in the world, in part due to the use of Unimate. In 1969, they rebuilt a plant in Ohio to install spot-weld Unimate. This robot achieved unprecedented production speeds and was capable of producing 110 cars per hour. It became the driving force behind GM’s growth in the automotive industry. The European auto industry soon followed them. BMW, Volvo, Mercedes-Benz, Leyland Motors of UK, Fiat and others introduced Unimate and made it perform tasks that are unpleasant and dangerous for humans. Unimate continued to be improved over the next 20 years and had long been in demand for its reliability and convenience, making it the most popular robot in the world.

Industrial robots, which started with Unimate, have become more sophisticated over time, and are now known as “Horizontal Articulated Robot”, “Parallel Link Robot”, “Cartesian Coordinate Robot”, and “Vertical Articulated Robot” which is also representative of industrial robots. They perform a variety of tasks like stacking pallets, casting parts, painting parts and products, etc. And this leads to the robot doing Jenga as mentioned earlier.

Today, robots play an active role in many aspects of our lives and social services beyond the factory. The form has expanded to include drones, UGVs, and humanoid robots.

While robots are making such rapid progress, they are facing some difficult challenges.

For example, with the dramatic advances in AI brought about by recent breakthroughs in Deep Learning technology and the integration and fusion of robots that can move in a variety of subtle ways, we can expect to see an increase in the number of autonomous robots that can sense and collect information, make decisions, and act on their own. In the near future, we will need to frequently discuss whether or not we should let the robots make the decision touching on ethical trade-offs, such as the so-called “trolley problem”. Accordingly, we will refer to the “Three Laws of Robotics” more and more often. Then it is really significant to get back to the fact that Unimate, the very origin of industrial robots was developed in the spirit of the “Three Laws of Robotics”, which means robots should serve people, not harm them.

Reference: https://note.com/masayamori/n/n545a0450be16

Appendix

The development of Unimate was about bringing new technology to the world and creating a future that had never existed before. That is similar to the work of Douglas Carl Engelbart who implemented new computer system envisioning the advancement of computer and presented the future on evolution of human intelligence augmented by computer networks in the 1960’s. If you are interested in it as well, please read the following article.