Present Days

After 1950 computers and robotics began to rapidly increase in both complexity and numbers as the technology had exponential growth in production, availability and capability.

1951 to 1960
In 1951 William Shockley invented the bipolar junction transistor, announced at a press conference on 4 July 1951. Shockley obtained a patent for this invention on 25 September 1951. In 1951 a computer called LEO became operational in the UK. It was built by Lyons for its own use: this was the world's first software programmable digital electronic computer for commercial applications, exploiting the US development of mercury delay line memory, and built with the support of the Cambridge EDSAC project. LEO was used for commercial work running business application programs, the first of which was rolled out 17 November 1951.

Eckert and Mauchly completed EDVAC in 1951. An improvement on ENIAC and UNIVAC, EDVAC used mercury delay lines to store data, making it the USA's first software stored program computer. In 1952, the television network CBS correctly predicted the election of Dwight D. Eisenhower as president using UNIVAC. In 1952 IBM announced its 701 model computer, marketed towards scientific use, it was designed by Nathaniel Rochester. Stanislaw Ulam and physicist Paul Stein converted MANIAC I (used for solving calculations involved in creating the hydrogen bomb) to play a modified game of chess in 1956; it was the first computer to beat a human in a game of chess. The term "Artificial Intelligence was created at a conference held at Dartmouth College in 1956. Allen Newell, J. C. Shaw, and Herbert A. Simon pioneered the newly created artificial intelligence field with the Logic Theory Machine (1956), and the General Problem Solver in 1957.  In 1958, John McCarthy and Marvin Minsky started the MIT Artificial Intelligence lab with $50,000. John McCarthy also created LISP in the summer of 1958, a programming language still important in artificial intelligence research. Jack Kilby and Robert Noyce invented the integrated circuit or "chip" in 1959; the inventors worked independent of each other. This development eventually revolutionized computers by affecting both the size and speed.

1961 to 1971
Unimate, the first industrial robot ever created began work on the General Motors assembly line in 1961; the machine was conceived in 1954 by George Devol. Unimate was manufactured by Unimation. Unimate is remembered as the first industrial robot. In 1962 John McCarthy founded the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at Stanford University. The Rancho Arm was developed as a robotic arm to help handicapped patients at the Rancho Los Amigos Hospital in Downey, California; this computer controlled arm was bought by Stanford University in 1963. IBM announced its IBM System/360 in 1964. The system was heralded as being more powerful, faster, and more capable than its predecessors. In 1965, Gordon Moore, a co-founder of Intel in 1968, develops what will become known as Moore's Law; the idea that the number of components capable of being built onto a chip will double every two years. The same year, doctoral student Edward Feigenbaum, geneticist and biochemist Joshua Lederberg, and Bruce Buchanan (who held a degree in philosophy) begin work on the DENDRAL, an expert system designed to work in the field of organic chemistry. Feigenbaum also founded the Heuristic Programming Project in 1965, it later became the Stanford Knowledge Systems Artificial Intelligence Laboratory. The program Mac Hack was also written in 1966; it beat artificial intelligence critic Hubert Dreyfus in a game of chess. The program was created by Richard Greenblatt. Seymour Papert created the Logo programming language in 1967. It was designed as an educational programming language. The film 2001: A Space Odyssey was released in  1968; the movie prominently features HAL 9000, a malevolent artificial intelligence unit which controls a spacecraft. Marvin Minsky created the Tentacle Arm in 1968; the arm was computer controlled and its 12 joints were powered by hydraulics. Mechanical Engineering student Victor Scheinman created the Stanford Arm in 1969; the Stanford Arm is recognized as the first electronic computer controlled robotic arm (Unimate's instructions were stored on a magnetic drum). The first floppy disc was released in 1970. It measured eight inches in diameter and read-only. The first mobile robot capable of reasoning about its surroundings, Shakey was built in 1970 by the Stanford Research Institute (now SRI International). Shakey combined multiple sensor inputs, including TV cameras, laser rangefinders, and "bump sensors" to navigate.

In the winter of 1970, the Soviet Union explored the surface of the moon with the lunar vehicle Lunokhod 1, the first roving remote-controlled robot to land on another world.

The first microprocessor, called the 4004 was created by Ted Hoff at Intel in 1971. Measuring 1/8 of an inch by 1/16 of an inch, the chip itself was more powerful than ENIAC.

1972 to 1980
Artificial intelligence critic Hubert Dreyfuss published his influential book "What Computers cannot Do" in 1972. Douglas Trumbull's "Silent Running" was released in 1972; the movie was notable for the three robot co-stars, named Huey, Dewey, and Louie. Released in 1973 was the logic based programming language PROLOG; this logic based language becomes important in the field of artificial intelligence. Freddy and Freddy II, both built in the United Kingdom, were robots capable of assembling wooden blocks in a period of several hours. German based company KUKA built the world's first industrial robot with six electromechanically driven axes, known as FAMULUS. In 1974, David Silver designed The Silver Arm; the Silver Arm was capable of fine movements replicating human hands. Feedback was provided by touch and pressure sensors and analyzed by a computer. MYCIN, an expert system developed to study decisions and prescriptions relating to blood infections. MYCIN was written in Lisp. Marvin Minsky published his landmark paper "A Framework for Representing Knowledge" on artificial intelligence. By 1975, four expert systems relating to medicine had been created; PIP, MYCIN, CASNET, and Internist. 1975: more than 5,000 computers were sold in the United States, and the first personal computer was introduced. The Kurzweil Reading Machine (invented by Raymond Kurzweil), intended to help the blind, was released in 1976. Capable of recognizing characters, the machine formulated pronunciation based on programmed rules. Based on studies of flexible objects in nature (such as elephant trunks and the vertebrae of snakes), Shigeo Hirose designed the Soft Gripper in 1976 the gripper was capable of conforming to the object it was grasping. The knowledge based system Automated Mathematician was presented by Douglas Lenat in 1976 as part of his doctoral dissertation. Automated Mathematician began with a knowledge of 110 concepts and rediscovered many mathematical principles; Automated Mathematician was written in Lisp. Joseph Weizenbaum (creator of ELIZA, a program capable of simulating a Rogerian physcotherapist) published Computer Power and Human Reason, presenting an argument against the creation of artificial intelligence. Steven Jobs and Stephen Wozniak created the Apple Computer in 1977, and released the Apple II. George Lucas' movie Star Wars was also released in 1977. Star Wars featured two robots; an android named C-3PO and R2-D2, both of which become iconic as robots. Voyagers 1 and 2 were launched in 1977 to explore the solar system. The 30 year old robotic space probes continue to transmit data back to earth and are approaching the heliopause and the interstellar medium. The SCARA, Selective Compliance Assembly Robot Arm, was created in 1978 as an efficient, 4-axis robotic arm. Best used for picking up parts and placing them in another location, the SCARA was introduced to assembly lines in  1981. XCON, an expert system designed to customize orders for industrial use, was released in 1979. The Stanford Cart successfully crossed a room full of chairs in 1979. The Stanford Cart relied primarily on stereo vision to navigate and determine distances. The Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University was founded in 1979 by Raj Reddy.

1981 to 1990


Takeo Kanade created the first "direct drive arm" in 1981. The first of its kind, the arm's motors were contained within the robot itself, eliminating long transmissions. IBM released its first personal computer (PC) in 1981; the name of the computer was responsible for popularizing the term "personal computer". Prospector a "computer-based consultation program for mineral exploration", created in 1976, discovered an unknown deposit of molybdenum in Washington state. The expert system had been updated annually since its creation. The Fifth Generation Computer Systems Project (FGCS) was started in 1982. Its goals were knowledge based information processing and massive parallelism in a supercomputer, artificial intelligence like system. Cyc, a project to create a database of common sense for artificial intelligence, was started in 1984 by Douglas Leant. The program attempts to deal with ambiguity in language, and is still underway. The first program to publish a book, the expert system Racter, programmed by William Chamberlain and Thomas Etter, wrote the book "The Policeman's Beard is Half-Constructed" in 1983. It is now thought that a system of complex templates were used. In 1984 Wabot-2 was revealed; capable of playing the organ, Wabot-2 had 10 fingers and two feet. Wabot-2 was able to read a score of music and accompany a person. In 1985, Kawasaki Heavy Industries' license agreement with Unimation was terminated; Kawasaki began to produce its own robots. Their first robot was released one year later. By 1986, artificial intelligence revenue was about $1 billion US dollars. Chess playing programs HiTech and Deep Thought defeated chess masters in 1989. Both were developed by Carnegie Mellon University; Deep Thought development paved the way for the Deep Blue. In 1986, Honda began its humanoid research and development program to create robots capable of interacting successfully with humans. In 1987, Artificial intelligence related technologies of the flims, Batteries Not Included robots, now produce a revenue of $1.4 billion US dollars. In 1988, Stäubli Group purchased Unimation. The Connection Machine was built in 1988 by Daniel Hillis; the supercomputer used 64,000 processors simultaneously. A hexapodal robot named Genghis was revealed by MIT in 1989. Genghis was famous for being made quickly and cheaply due to construction methods; Genghis used 4 microprocessors, 22 sensors, and 12 servo motors. Rodney Brooks and Anita M. Flynn published "Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control: A Robot Invasion of The Solar System". The paper advocated creating smaller cheaper robots in greater numbers to increase production time and decrease the difficulty of launching robots into space.

1991 to 2000
While competing in a 1993 NASA sponsored competition, Carnegie Mellon University's eight legged robot Dante failed to collect gases from Mt. Erebus because of a broken fiber optic cable. Dante was designed to scale slopes and harvest gases near the surface of the magma; however, the failure in the cable did not permit the robot to enter the active volcano. In 1994, Dante II  entered Mt. Spurr and successfully sampled the gases within the volcano. The biomimetic robot RoboTuna was built by doctoral student David Barrett at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1996 to study how fish swim in water. RoboTuna is designed to swim and resemble a blue fin tuna. Invented by Dr. John Adler, in 1994, the Cyberknife (a stereotactic radiosurgery performing robot) offered an alternative treatment of tumors with a comparable accuracy to surgery performed by human doctors. Honda's P2 humanoid robot was first shown in 1996. Standing for "Prototype Model 2", P2 was an integral part of Honda's humanoid development project; over 6 feet tall, P2 was smaller than its predecessors and appeared to be more human-like in its motions. Expected to only operate for seven days, the Sojourner rover finally shuts down after 83 days of operation in 1997. This small robot (only weighing 23 lbs) performed semi-autonomous operations on the surface of Mars as part of the Mars Pathfinder mission; equipped with an obstacle avoidance program, Sojourner was capable of planning and navigating routes to study the surface of the planet. Sojourner's ability to navigate with little data about its environment and nearby surroundings allowed the robot to react to unplanned events and objects. Also in 1997, IBM's chess playing program Deep Blue beat the then current World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov playing at the "Grandmaster" level. The super computer was a specialized version of a framework produced by IBM, and was capable of processing twice as many moves per second as it had during the first match (which Deep Blue had lost), reportedly 200,000,000 moves per second. The event was broadcast live over the internet and received over 74 million hits. The P3 humanoid robot was revealed by Honda in 1998 as a part of the company's continuing humanoid project. In 1999, Sony introduced the AIBO, a robotic dog capable of interacting with humans, the first models released in Japan sold out in 20 minutes. Honda revealed the most advanced result of their humanoid project in 2000, named ASIMO. ASIMO is capable of running, walking, communication with humans, facial and environmental recognition, voice and posture recognition, and interacting with its environment. Sony also revealed its Sony Dream Robots, small humanoid robots in development for entertainment. In October 2000, the United Nations estimated that there were 742,500 industrial robots in the world, with more than half of the robots being used in Japan.

2001 to 2009
In April 2001, the Canadarm2 was launched into orbit and attached to the International Space Station. The Canadarm2 is a larger, more capable version of the arm used by the Space Shuttle and is hailed as being "smarter." Also in April, the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Global Hawk made the first autonomous non-stop flight over the Pacific Ocean from Edwards Air Force Base in California to RAAF Base Edinburgh in Southern Australia. The flight was made in 22 hours. The popular Roomba, a robotic vacuum cleaner, was first released in 2002 by the company iRobot. In 2004, Cornell University revealed a robot capable of self-replication; a set of cubes capable of attaching and detaching, the first robot capable of building copies of itself. On 3 and 24 January the Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity land on the surface of Mars. Launched in 2003, the two robots will drive many times the distance originally expected, and Opportunity is still operating as of mid 2012. Self-driving cars had made their appearance by the middle of the first decade of the 21st century, but there was room for improvement. All 15 teams competing in the  2004 DARPA Grand Challenge failed to complete the course, with no robot successfully navigating more than five percent of the 150 mile off road course, leaving the $1 million dollar prize unclaimed. In the 2005 DARPA Grand Challenge, five teams completed the off-road course; Stanford University's Stanley won first place and the $2 million dollar prize. Also in 2005, Honda revealed a new version of its ASIMO robot, updated with new behaviors and capabilities. In 2006, Cornell University revealed its "Starfish" robot, a 4-legged robot capable of self modeling and learning to walk after having been damaged. In September 2007, Google announced its Lunar X Prize. The Lunar X Prize offers 30 million dollars to the first private company which lands a rover on the moon and sends images back to earth. In 2007, TOMY launched the entertainment robot, i-sobot, which is a humanoid bipedal robot that can walk like a human beings and performs kicks and punches and also some entertaining tricks and special actions under "Special Action Mode".

2010 to the present
Robonaut 2, the latest generation of the astronaut helpers, launched to the space station aboard Space Shuttle Discovery on the STS-133 mission. It is the first humanoid robot in space, and although its primary job for now is teaching engineers how dexterous robots behave in space, the hope is that through upgrades and advancements, it could one day venture outside the station to help spacewalkers make repairs or additions to the station or perform scientific work.

The Google driverless car became famous by the 2010s, as Google's robotic vehicles (with drivers behind their wheels, in case of an emergency) drove to numerous places while taking pictures of the scenery.