From the Unimate to the Delta Robot: The Early Decades of Industrial Robotics

In this paper, the early decades of the history of industrial robots (from the 1950’s to the beginning of the 1990’s, approximately) will be described. The history of industrial robotics can be considered starting with Unimate, the first industrial robot designed and built by Devol and Engelberger. The subsequent evolutions of industrial robotics are described in the manuscript, taking into account both the technical and the economic point of view, until the beginning of the 1990’s, when new kinematic structures (parallel robots) appeared, allowing high-speed operations.