Unimate

In 1961 the first industrial robot, Unimate,

joined the assembly line at a General Motors plant to work with heated die-casting
machines. Unimate took die castings from machines and performed welding on auto bodies;
tasks that are unpleasant for people. Obeying step-by-step commands stored on a magnetic
drum, the 4,000-pound arm is versatile enough to perform a variety of tasks.

An industry was spawned and a variety of other tasks were also performed by robots, such
as loading and unloading machine tools. Unimate industrial robots are among the most
widely used industrial robots in the world. With over 20 years of continued improvement they
are highly reliable, easy-to-use robots.

The UNIMATE robots feature up to six fully programmable axes of motion and are designed
for high-speed handling of parts weighing up to 500 lbs. The dedicated electronic control is
regarded as one of the simplest controllers available in the industry today for teaching and
operating industrial robots.

Unimate was conceived in 1956 at a meeting between inventors George Devol and Joseph
Engelberger, where they discussed the writings of science fiction. Together they made a
serious commitment to develop a real, working robot.