A Sense of Purpose Enables Better Human-Robot Collaboration
A Sense of Purpose Enables Better Human-Robot Collaboration The year is 1954. Two American, inventor George Devol and entrepreneur Joseph F. Engelberger are discussing their favorite science fiction writers at a cocktail party. Devol has recently filed his latest idea at the Patent Office, the first Universal Automation or Unimate, an early effort to replace factory workers with robotic machinery. His creative genius had already given birth to two of the first technological marvels of the modern world: the Phantom Doorman, an automatic door with photocells and vacuum tubes, and the Speedy Weeny, a machine that uses microwave energy to cook hot dogs on demand. Engelberger found the Unimate industrial transfer machine so compelling that seven years later, as soon as the patent was approved, he formed a company to develop the ideas of Mr. Devol. The name of that company was Unimation Inc. Their “programmed article transferred”, later rebaptized “manipulator” and finally “robo
