Unimate

The world's first industrial robot. Installed at a General Motors plant in Ewing, New Jersey, Unimate extracted die castings from an assembly line and welded parts onto auto bodies — tasks that were dangerous for human workers. Devol patented the concept in 1954; Engelberger, often called the "father of robotics," built the company (Unimation) to commercialize it. Unimate proved that robots could deliver real economic value in manufacturing and launched an industry that now deploys millions of industrial arms worldwide. The machine weighed 4,000 pounds and used a magnetic drum memory to store step-by-step commands.