George Devol

George Devol, a self-made Engineer and pioneer of industrial robotics. He developed the first programmable robot in 1954 and started the first robot arm company (Unimation) with Joseph F. Engelberger in 1956. He also made contributions to the field of industrial automation in machine vision and bar coding.

TIMELINE

1930S

Devol starts the United Cinephone Corporation which manufactures phonograph arms and amplifiers. He installs amplifiers at the Cotton Club and enjoys watching Count Basie and others.

1939

Devol's company installs automated counters at New York World's Fair to count customers entering the fairgrounds.

1940S

During WWII , Devol starts and runs the country's largest radar counter-measure company which ultimately has over 2,000 employees. The company's radar counter-measure systems are on the allied planes on D-Day.

1946

Devol Patent s a general purpose playback device that uses a magnetic process recorder for controlling machines. In the same year the computer emerges for the first time.

1950S

1954

Devol patents the first programmable robot and coins the term ''Universal Automation''. At the suggestion of his wife, Evelyn, he later shortens this to Unimation .
When he filed a U.S. patent for a programmable method for transferring articles between different parts of a factory, he wrote: "The present invention makes available for the first time a more or less general purpose machine that has universal application to a vast diversity of applications where cyclic control is desired."

1956

George Devol and Joseph F. Engelberger meet at a cocktail party and during the evening exchange some serious ideas:

50 percent of the people who work in factories are really putting and taking.

Why are machines made to produce only specific items?

How about approaching manufacturing the other way around, by designing machines that could put and take anything?

As a result of this discussion the same year Devol and Engelberger form the world's first robot company. It is called Unimation, Inc.

Thanks to a huge effort on Devol's part along with the management skill of Joseph Engelberger Devol's robot evolves into the Unimate. It combines industrial manipulator technology and nascent computer control technology. Their first robot is a material handling robot and is soon followed by robots for welding and other applications.

1960S

1960

Unimation is purchased by the Condec Corporation and development of the Unimate Robot Systems begins.

1961

The first Unimate robot is shipped from Danbury, Connecticut and installed in a plant of General Motors in Trenton, New Jersey. The robot lifts hot pieces of metal from a die-casting machine and stacks them.

1970S

1975

Unimation shows a profit.

1978

The Puma (Programmable Universal Machine for Assembly) robot is developed by Unimation from Vicarm (developed by Victor Scheinman ) techniques and with support from General Motors .

FAMOUS QUOTES

“Anything that is manufactured is manipulated. Every part is manipulated while it is made. Every part is manipulated while is assembled. A part is manipulated when it is delivered from a plant. Everything is manipulated.” George C. Devol, Jr. (interview, 3/11/83)

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George Devol