Robotics and autonomy
Physical machines that sense, decide and act in the world.
52 milestones
Cornell University researchers demonstrate electrically actuated microscale origami robots with onboard CMOS control
On 17 March 2021, researchers at Cornell University published a demonstration of self-folding microscale robots, roughly 100–250 microns in size, driven by platinum-based shape-memory actuators and controlled by onboard complementary metal-oxide-semiconductor (CMOS) circuits, enabling untethered, electrically commanded origami-style locomotion at the micron scale.
Cavatappi Artificial Muscles from Drawing, Twisting, and Coiling Polymer Tubes
In 2021, researchers led by Tzu-Ching Shyu at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign published findings in Science Robotics describing cavatappi artificial muscles, twisted polymer actuators made from polyethylene-based tubes, capable of contracting up to 45% of their length, lifting approximately 300 times their weight per unit volume, and actuating within 23 milliseconds per 1% length change.
Pneumatic-logic soft robot without electronic components, University of California San Diego, 2021
In 2021, Michael T. Tolley and colleagues at the University of California San Diego published a soft walking robot controlled entirely by pneumatic logic circuits embedded in its body, with no electronic components, demonstrating autonomous gait and environmental responsiveness through fluidic computation alone.
Soft Robotic Gripper Modelled on Pole Bean Tendrils Developed at University of Georgia
In December 2020, researchers at the University of Georgia developed a soft robotic gripper modelled on the twining behaviour of pole bean tendrils. The 3-inch device uses a single pneumatic actuator and an embedded fibre-optic sensor to grasp objects as small as 1 millimetre in diameter and characterise surface properties during contact.
Waymo One Launches Fully Driverless Rides to the General Public in Phoenix, Arizona
On 8 October 2020, Waymo opened its Waymo One ride-hailing service to the general public in the greater Phoenix, Arizona area, operating without a safety driver in the vehicle, the first time a commercial autonomous vehicle service had done so at public scale.
Textron Systems Unveils Ripsaw M5 Robotic Combat Vehicle
In October 2019, Textron Systems unveiled the Ripsaw M5 Robotic Combat Vehicle at the Association of the United States Army Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C., demonstrating an unmanned ground vehicle with autonomous navigation, 360-degree situational awareness, and configurable mission payloads.
LOVOT Companion Robot Unveiled by Groove X
In December 2018, Groove X, a Japanese robotics company founded by Kaname Hayashi, unveiled LOVOT, a companion robot designed to elicit emotional attachment rather than perform practical tasks, equipped with more than 50 sensors, a thermal camera array, and a neural-processing unit to recognise and respond to human behaviour.
Waymo One Commercial Ride-Hailing Service Launch
In December 2018, Waymo LLC launched Waymo One, a fare-charging autonomous ride-hailing service operating in the Greater Phoenix, Arizona area, marking the first time a driverless vehicle service had been made available to paying members of the public in the United States.
CIMON Launched to the International Space Station
In June 2018, DLR, Airbus, and IBM launched CIMON (Crew Interactive Mobile Companion), a spherical, voice-controlled AI assistant, to the International Space Station aboard SpaceX CRS-15. It was designed to support ESA astronaut Alexander Gerst with procedural tasks and reduce cognitive workload.
BWIBots: A Platform for Robots Operating in Human-Inhabited Buildings
In February 2017, researchers at the University of Texas at Austin's Building-Wide Intelligence project published a description of the BWIBots platform in the International Journal of Robotics Research, detailing mobile robots designed to operate autonomously in office buildings, accept natural-language commands, and learn cooperative tasks through human interaction.
Octobot: First Autonomous Soft Robot Using Microfluidic Logic
On 24 August 2016, researchers at Harvard University published the design of Octobot, the first autonomous, entirely soft robot. Powered by a chemical reaction and controlled by microfluidic logic, it required no electronics, batteries, or rigid components.
Moley Robotics Demonstrates Robotic Kitchen System at Hannover Messe
In April 2015, London-based Moley Robotics unveiled a prototype robotic kitchen system at Hannover Messe, comprising a pair of dexterous robotic arms capable of replicating recorded human cooking movements, integrated with an oven, hob, and dishwasher in a fitted kitchen unit.
SoftBank Robotics and Aldebaran Unveil Pepper, a Humanoid Robot with Emotion Recognition
In June 2014, SoftBank Robotics and its subsidiary Aldebaran Robotics unveiled Pepper, a 1.2-metre humanoid robot equipped with an emotion-recognition system capable of detecting human facial expressions, voice tone, and body language, intended for retail and customer-service deployment.
Schaft Inc Robot Wins DARPA Robotics Challenge Trials 2013
In December 2013, Schaft Inc, a Japanese robotics company acquired by Google in October 2013, won the DARPA Robotics Challenge Trials at Homestead Miami Speedway, Florida, scoring 27 out of 32 points across eight disaster-response tasks and finishing ahead of 15 other teams.
Kirobo Robot Launched to the International Space Station
In August 2013, a consortium comprising the University of Tokyo, Toyota Motor Corporation, Dentsu Inc., and JAXA launched Kirobo, a small humanoid robot capable of speech recognition and natural-language conversation, to the International Space Station aboard HTV-4 to serve as a conversational companion for Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata.
AeroVironment Nano Hummingbird: DARPA-funded Flapping-Wing Micro Air Vehicle
In February 2011, AeroVironment unveiled the Nano Hummingbird, a DARPA-funded flapping-wing micro air vehicle weighing 19 grams, less than a AA battery, that carried a video camera and used control systems to mimic hummingbird flight, including hover and omnidirectional movement.
Dasarobot Genibo QD Consumer Pet Robot
In April 2006, South Korean company Dasarobot unveiled the Genibo QD, a consumer pet robot modelled on a dog and equipped with cameras, infrared sensors, and voice-recognition software designed to simulate emotional responses to its owner.
Stanford Racing Team's Stanley Wins DARPA Grand Challenge 2005
On 8 October 2005, a Stanford University team led by Sebastian Thrun entered Stanley, a modified Volkswagen Touareg, in the DARPA Grand Challenge. Stanley completed the 131.6-mile (211.8 km) Mojave Desert course autonomously in under 7 hours, finishing first and winning the $2 million prize.
Self-Replicating Modular Robot Demonstrated by Cornell University Researchers
In May 2005, Hod Lipson and Jordan Pollack's group at Cornell University, led by Viktor Zykov and colleagues, published in Nature a demonstration of a modular robot capable of physically replicating its own structure from a supplied stack of identical cubes, showing that kinematic self-replication is achievable in engineered machines.
BigDog Quadruped Robot by Boston Dynamics
Around 2005, Boston Dynamics, under DARPA funding, developed BigDog, a four-legged quadruped robot capable of traversing rough terrain and carrying payloads of approximately 154 kg. BigDog demonstrated dynamic balance and legged locomotion at a scale and capability not previously achieved in a field robot.
Honda Unveils ASIMO Version with Running Capability
In December 2004, Honda demonstrated an updated version of its ASIMO humanoid robot capable of running at 3 km/h, a significant advance over prior versions that could only walk. The update also improved ASIMO's ability to navigate dynamically changing environments.
iCub Humanoid Robot Platform
The iCub humanoid robot was developed from 2004 onward by the RobotCub Consortium, coordinated by the Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (IIT), as an open-hardware child-sized platform for research into embodied cognition, motor learning, and human–robot interaction.
KHR-1 Humanoid Robot Platform
Researchers at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) and Kawada Industries presented KHR-1 in 2004, a full-body humanoid robot platform with 30 degrees of freedom designed as a shared research base for bipedal locomotion and whole-body motion studies.
NASA Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity Begin Autonomous Surface Operations
NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit and Opportunity landed on Mars in January 2004 and used onboard autonomous navigation software to traverse the Martian surface, making decisions about safe paths without real-time human control due to communication delays of up to 20 minutes.
Pocket Delta: Miniaturised Parallel Delta Robot for High-Speed Micro-Assembly
In 2004, researchers at the Laboratoire de Robotique de Versailles demonstrated the Pocket Delta, a miniaturised parallel delta-structure robot capable of high-speed, sub-millimetre precision movements for micro-assembly tasks, advancing the application of parallel kinematic mechanisms to small-scale automated manufacturing.
Zoe: Autonomous Astrobiology Field Robot for the Atacama Desert
In 2004, a team from Carnegie Mellon University's Field Robotics Center, NASA Ames Research Center, and the University of Tennessee deployed the Zoe rover autonomously across Chile's Atacama Desert, demonstrating robotic detection of subsurface biological life with relevance to astrobiology and future Mars exploration.
Fujitsu Laboratories Develops Dynamically Reconfigurable Neural Network for Humanoid Robot Motor Learning
In March 2003, Fujitsu Laboratories announced a dynamically reconfigurable neural network system enabling humanoid robots to learn motor coordination from experience, reducing learning time that previously required days or months and substantially cutting the volume of motion-control software needed.
DARPA Centibots Project
DARPA funded the Centibots project, a multi-institution effort to demonstrate coordinated autonomous mapping and search using up to 100 mobile robots simultaneously, with results reported from 2003. It addressed whether large teams of robots could self-organise without continuous human supervision.
Autographer: Autonomous Robot Photographer Deployed at AAAI/IAAI 2003
In 2003, Selene Mota and Rosalind Picard at the MIT Media Lab deployed an autonomous mobile robot called Autographer at IAAI 2003. Over five days it navigated a conference environment, interacted with roughly 5,000 people, and captured more than 3,000 photographs, 35% of which recipients requested by email.
iRobot Roomba Launch
In September 2002, iRobot Corporation released the Roomba, a disc-shaped autonomous vacuum cleaner priced at USD 199. The product demonstrated that a reactive, behaviour-based robot could navigate unstructured domestic environments without maps, bringing autonomous robotics into mainstream consumer households.
iRobot PackBot Deployed at World Trade Center Disaster Site
In September 2001, iRobot Corporation deployed PackBot ground robots to search the rubble of the World Trade Center following the 11 September attacks, representing one of the first operational uses of an autonomous mobile robot in a disaster-response mission.
Space Station Remote Manipulator System (Canadarm2) Deployed on the International Space Station
On 22 April 2001, the Space Station Remote Manipulator System (Canadarm2), built by MD Robotics of Canada, was installed on the International Space Station during the STS-100 mission. The 17-metre robotic arm used computer-vision and control-systems software to manoeuvre equipment, modules, and astronauts autonomously or under remote supervision.
Kismet: Sociable Robot Developed by Cynthia Breazeal at MIT
Around 2000, Cynthia Breazeal at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory completed Kismet, a robotic head capable of perceiving and expressing emotion through coordinated facial features, pioneering research into socially intelligent robots able to engage in natural affective interaction with humans.
Sony AIBO Robot Dog Released
In May 1999, Sony Corporation released AIBO (Artificial Intelligence roBOt), model ERS-110, a consumer entertainment robot in the form of a dog. The robot used onboard processing and sensors to exhibit autonomous behaviour and express simulated emotional states, marking one of the first mass-market deployments of embodied AI behaviour.
Intelligent Room and Affective Computing Agents at MIT AI Laboratory
In 1998, researchers at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, including Rodney Brooks and Cynthia Breazeal, developed the Intelligent Room project alongside work on emotionally expressive robotic agents, combining layered behaviour-based architectures with computer vision to enable a physical space to perceive and respond to human occupants.
Sojourner Rover Lands on Mars as First Autonomous Wheeled Vehicle on Another Planet
On 4 July 1997, NASA's Sojourner rover became the first wheeled vehicle to operate on another planet, driving onto the Martian surface as part of the Mars Pathfinder mission. Sojourner used onboard hazard-avoidance logic and laser stripe sensors to navigate autonomously when out of direct communication with Earth.
Nomad Robot Field Experiment, Atacama Desert
In June 1997, Carnegie Mellon University deployed the Nomad robot in the Atacama Desert, Chile, in a NASA-funded field experiment testing long-range autonomous and teleoperated rover navigation over approximately 220 kilometres of terrain, directly informing future planetary exploration rover design.
MIT Cog Project: Humanoid Robotics for Cognitive Research
Around 1993, Rodney Brooks and colleagues at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Artificial Intelligence Laboratory initiated the Cog project, constructing an upper-torso humanoid robot intended to investigate whether human-like cognitive capacities could emerge from embodied interaction with a physical environment.
ALVINN: An Autonomous Land Vehicle in a Neural Network, Developed by Dean Pomerleau at CMU
In 1989, Dean Pomerleau at Carnegie Mellon University published ALVINN (Autonomous Land Vehicle in a Neural Network), a three-layer backpropagation network trained on road images that steered the CMU Navlab vehicle autonomously, demonstrating that a neural network could learn driving behaviour directly from sensor data.
Ernst Dickmanns and VaMoRs Autonomous Van Test, Bundeswehr University Munich
In 1986, Ernst Dickmanns and colleagues at Bundeswehr University Munich demonstrated VaMoRs, a Mercedes-Benz van retrofitted with cameras and real-time computer vision, capable of autonomous driving on traffic-free roads at speeds up to approximately 96 km/h, marking one of the earliest working autonomous vehicle demonstrations.
WABOT-2 Humanoid Robot Demonstrated at Waseda University
In 1984, researchers at Waseda University in Japan completed WABOT-2, a humanoid robot capable of reading printed musical scores, communicating with a human performer via speech, and playing an electronic organ using its fingers and foot pedals at a level comparable to an average adult pianist.
RB5X Personal Robot Introduced by RB Robot Corporation
In 1982, RB Robot Corporation, founded by Joseph Bosworth, introduced the RB5X, a dome-shaped autonomous personal robot programmable in TinyBASIC or the proprietary Savvy language, equipped with sonar, photodiode, and bumper sensors for navigating domestic environments without direct human guidance.
Stanford Cart Slider Modification by Hans Moravec
During the late 1970s, Hans Moravec at Stanford University extended the Stanford Cart, originally built by James L. Adams in the 1960s, with a sliding camera mount, enabling the robot to navigate autonomously across a chair-filled room in 1979 using stereo vision, a milestone in autonomous vehicle research.
FREDDY II Robot, University of Edinburgh Department of Machine Intelligence and Perception
By 1973, researchers at the University of Edinburgh's Department of Machine Intelligence and Perception had developed FREDDY II, a robot arm system that used computer vision and tactile feedback to identify and assemble simple objects from a pile of scattered parts, demonstrating integrated perception and manipulation in a single robotic system.
MIT Arm: Six-Axis Robotic Manipulator by Victor Scheinman
In 1973, Victor Scheinman at MIT completed the MIT Arm, a six-degree-of-freedom all-revolute robotic manipulator with DARPA funding. Its wrist-intersecting joint geometry simplified kinematic analysis and influenced the design of research and surgical robot arms for decades.
WABOT-1 Completed at Waseda University
In 1973, researchers at Waseda University in Japan completed WABOT-1, a full-scale anthropomorphic robot integrating limb control, machine vision, and Japanese-language conversation. It was among the earliest humanoid robots to combine locomotion, manipulation, and speech interaction in a single system.
Stanford Cart Road-Following Experiment Under Les Earnest
In late 1971, Les Earnest at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory adapted the Stanford Cart for autonomous road-following, using a television camera and a low-power radio control link to guide the vehicle along a road at approximately 0.8 mph (1.3 kph).
Stanford Arm Developed by Victor Scheinman at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
In 1969, Victor Scheinman, a mechanical engineering student at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (SAIL), designed the Stanford Arm, an all-electric six-degree-of-freedom robotic manipulator whose kinematic configuration made it well-suited to computer control and geometric path planning.
SRI International Begins Development of Shakey the Robot
From 1966, researchers at the Stanford Research Institute (led by Charles Rosen and including Nils Nilsson, Bertram Raphael, and Peter Hart) developed Shakey, a mobile robot that combined computer vision, natural language input, and automated planning to navigate and manipulate objects in a real environment.
Stanford Cart Radio-Link Configuration (1963)
In September 1963, researchers at Stanford University fitted the Stanford Cart with an analogue computer and radio-control links, allowing a remote operator to steer the vehicle using a television camera feed and a displayed target dot, in an early attempt at closed-loop vision-guided vehicle control.
Unimate Installed on General Motors Assembly Line
In 1961, the Unimate robot, designed by George Devol and developed commercially by Unimation Inc., was installed on a General Motors assembly line in New Jersey, becoming the first industrial robot deployed in a production manufacturing environment.
Stanford Cart (Cable-Controlled Version)
In 1961, James L. Adams at Stanford University built the first version of the Stanford Cart, a four-wheeled vehicle tethered by cable to a remote console and television monitor, to investigate video-guided remote control. Tests showed the Cart could not operate reliably above approximately 0.2 mph owing to communication delays introduced by the cable link.