beginnings of robotics and Joe
Engelberger’s first Unimate. It was a
real fight over many years for Joe and
his partner, George Devol to bring
about that robot, and Engelberger is
known today as the ‘Father of
Robotics’ for his extensive efforts in
developing the industry. In an
interview with Bloomberg Business
Week in 1997, Engelberger said that
he’d like to be remembered as the
‘Father of the Home Robot.’
“Common sense tells you it’s got to
end up a bigger market than factory
robots,” he said.
I had the opportunity to eat lunch
with Joe and spend some time talking
with him (Figure 3) at the
International Personal Robotics
Congress in Albuquerque, NM. He
was interested in my space robotics
work, but his more down-to-earth
efforts in developing a viable home
robot to assist the elderly was far
more interesting to me. Designs for
such robots — whether for space or
for healthcare — were just being
formed, and Joe was in the excellent
position to make a truly functional
home robot a reality (whereas my
designs were decades in the future).
Though Engelberger is now 90,
back in the ‘80s and early ‘90s, he
observed his own aging parents and
the help that they required. He
realized there was a tremendous need
for a whole new field of robotics,
though his first product was aimed at
hospitals as a courier bot.
The First Hospital
Courier Robot
Before looking at the more
personal type of robot that
Engelberger was trying to develop, I’d
like to discuss his courier robot: the
Helpmate robot shown in Figure 4.
This robot is configured to deliver
drugs, meals, and supplies to needed
1984 with a company he formed
called Transitions Research Corp.
