| |
1961: Installation of the First Industrial Robot |
 |
Industrial  robotics, an automation technology relying on the two technologies of numerical control and teleoperators, started to gain widespread attendance in the 1960s. The first industrial robot was installed at General Motors in 1961. Developed by Joe Engelberger and George Devol, UNIMATE obeyed step-by-step commands stored on a magnetic drum and with its 4,000 pound arm sequenced and stacked hot pieces of die-cast metal.
|
|
General Motors
American corporation that was the world's largest automotive manufacturer and perhaps the largest industrial corporation throughout most of the 20th century. It was founded in 1908 to consolidate several motorcar companies and today operates manufacturing and assembly plants and distribution centers throughout the United States and Canada and many other countries. Its major products include automobiles and trucks, a wide range of automotive components, engines, and defense and aerospace material. In 1996 it sold Electronic Data Systems, and in 1997 it sold the defense units of its Hughes Electronics subsidiary to the Raytheon Company, thus leaving the computer-services and defense-aerospace fields in order to concentrate on its automotive businesses. The company's headquarters are in Detroit, Michigan.
|
|
|
