Robots feel like a 21st-century story, but the idea is thousands of years old. This timeline follows the machines and ideas that took us from water-powered curiosities to humanoids on factory floors, with a British thread running through it. Pick an era to filter, or simply scroll.
The timeline
- Before 1900
Ancient automata: moving machines long before the word “robot”
Greek engineers described machines powered by water, falling weights and steam, and in the 13th century al-Jazari built water-driven automata for the Artuqid princes. None could sense or decide anything.
Key names
- Archytas (fl. 400–350 BC): a wooden pigeon driven by steam or air
- Hero of Alexandria (1st century AD): water, weight and steam devices
- Al-Jazari (13th century): water-operated automata, many of them peacocks
Leonardo’s mechanical knight
In Milan, probably for a festivity at the Sforza court, Leonardo designed an armoured figure worked by cables and pulleys. It survives only as scattered notes, so today’s working versions are modern reconstructions.
The Silver Swan
Made in James Cox’s London workshop around 1773, this life-size clockwork swan preens and appears to catch a fish. It still performs at the Bowes Museum in County Durham.
- 1900–1960
R.U.R. gives us the word “robot”
Karel Čapek’s play Rossum’s Universal Robots, published in 1920 and first staged in 1921, imagined manufactured workers who turn on their makers. The word comes from the Czech for forced labour.
Asimov’s Three Laws
In the story “Runaround”, Isaac Asimov set out three rules: don’t harm humans, obey orders, protect yourself, in that order of priority. They are fiction, but still surface in real debates about robot safety.
Elmer and Elsie, Bristol’s robot tortoises
At Bristol’s Burden Neurological Institute, William Grey Walter built two small robots with a light sensor and a shell that doubled as a bump sensor. With simple electronics and no computer, they headed for light and steered round obstacles.
Turing asks: can machines think?
In the journal Mind, Alan Turing swapped that question for a practical test he called the imitation game, now known as the Turing test.
- In the UK: Turing wrote his paper while at the University of Manchester, and a Grey Walter tortoise from the early 1950s is in the Science Museum Group collection.
- 1960–2000
Unimate joins the production line
The first industrial robot, invented by George Devol and developed by Joseph Engelberger’s Unimation, started at a General Motors plant in Trenton, New Jersey, lifting and stacking hot metal parts.
Shakey, the robot that planned
At SRI in California, Shakey became the first mobile robot able to perceive and reason about its surroundings. Using a TV camera and bump sensors, it planned routes and pushed simple objects around. Its ideas shaped modern robotics.
Freddy builds a toy car in Edinburgh
Donald Michie’s team at the University of Edinburgh built Freddy II, a “hand-eye” robot. Given a jumbled heap of wooden parts, it assembled a toy car and boat, though it took about 16 hours. It is now in the National Museum of Scotland.
PUMA brings electric arms to assembly
Designed by Victor Scheinman with Unimation for General Motors, this computer-controlled electric arm assembled car parts such as dashboard panels from 1978. Its descendants still do light assembly.
Sojourner rolls out on Mars
NASA’s Mars Pathfinder landed on 4 July 1997 and a day later released Sojourner, the first robotic rover on the Martian surface. It weighed 10.6kg and stood 30cm tall.
Shadow Robot’s attic beginnings
In 1987 enthusiasts began meeting in a London attic to build robots. They registered as the Shadow Robot Company in 1997; it now sells dexterous robot hands to labs.
- 2000–2025
Roomba brings a robot home
iRobot launched the Roomba in September 2002 at $199. It was not the first robot vacuum and had no map, but more than a million were sold by 2004.
Ocado’s robot grid
Ocado’s first automated warehouse, in 2002, used cranes and conveyor belts. It later switched to swarms of robots running across a storage grid, lifting crates from below; by 2018 its Andover site had about 600.
Atlas makes humanoids look possible
Boston Dynamics unveiled its hydraulic Atlas in July 2013 for a US defence agency’s disaster-response challenge. Its backflips made it a viral star. In April 2024 it was retired for a fully electric Atlas aimed at factory work.
Waymo One opens for business
Waymo launched the first commercial self-driving ride-hailing service near Phoenix, Arizona, at first with trained drivers at the wheel. Fully driverless public rides followed in 2020.
Robots learn from the web
Google DeepMind’s RT-2 was billed as the first vision-language-action model: an AI trained on web text and images that outputs robot movements directly. Robots are increasingly trained rather than programmed.
- In the UK: Google DeepMind, which built RT-2, is based in London, and in 2024 Shadow Robot unveiled its DEX-EE hand, developed with DeepMind.
- 2026 and next
Humanoids start real jobs, slowly
Tesla says Optimus is now built on a production line in Fremont, California, and Agility Robotics says Digit has logged more than 65,000 working hours for customers. Most humanoids still do narrow tasks in pilots.
Robotaxis reach London
Since 3 September 2026, Uber riders in London can be matched with a car driven by Wayve’s AI, with a safety driver behind the wheel. Fully driverless rides still need a permit and Transport for London’s consent.
What to watch next
The big questions now are dull ones: how long a robot works between faults, what each task costs and who is liable when things go wrong. Those answers, not demo videos, will decide how fast robots reach British homes.
What to watch
- Uptime and cost per task
- UK permits and liability rules
- Whether AI trained in simulation copes with real homes
The through-line
Machines that move have existed for centuries. The big leaps came with better senses and better ways of deciding what to do, from Grey Walter’s light sensor and Shakey’s camera to today’s AI models. The bodies were ready long ago; the brains are catching up.