George Charles Devol Jr. (February 20, 1912 –), born in Louisville, Kentucky, is the inventor of the first industrial robot. February 20 is the 51st day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar. ... An inventor is a person who creates new inventions, typically technical devices such as mechanical, electrical or software devices or methods. ... An industrial robot is officially defined by ISO (Standard 8373:1994, Manipulating Industrial Robots – Vocabulary) as an automatically controlled, reprogrammable, multipurpose manipulator programmable in three or more axes. ...

1930's Devol starts United Cinephone Corporation which manufactures phonograph arms and amplifiers. Installs amplifiers at the Cotton Club. 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.

Early 1940's During WWII, Devol started and ran the country's largest radar counter-measure company which ultimately had over 2,000 employees. The company's radar counter-measure systems were on the allied planes on D-Day.

1946 Devol patents a general purpose playback device that used a magnetic process recorder for controlling machines. The device uses a magnetic process recorder. In the same year the computer emerges for the first time.

1954 The first programmable robot is patented by George Devol, who coins the term Universal Automation. He later shortens this to Unimation, which becomes the name of the first robot company.

When, in 1954 George C. Devol 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."

Devol coined the term Universal Automation. At the suggestion of his wife, Evelyn, he later shortens this to Unimation, which becomes the name of the first robot company in 1956.

1956 George Devol and Joseph F. Engelberger formed the world's first robot company.

They met at a cocktail party in 1956 and during the evening exchanged 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.

Devol's robot evolved into the Unimate and it represented a huge effort on Devol's part along with the management skill of Joseph Engelberger and Unimation, Inc.

Devol's robot combined industrial manipulator technology and nascent computer control technology. This first robot was a material handling robot and it was soon followed by welding and other applications.

George Devol is considered a pioneer of industrial robotics. He developed the first programmable robot in 1954 and later started the first robot arm company (Unimation) with Joe Engleberger in the 1950s.

1960 Unimation is purchased by Condec Corporation and development of Unimate Robot Systems begins.

1961 The first Unimate robot is shipped from Danbury, Connecticut and installed in a Trenton, New Jersey, plant of General Motors. The robot lifted hot pieces of metal from a die-casting machine and stacked them.

1975 Unimation shows a profit.

1978 The Puma (Programmable Universal Machine for Assembly) robot is developed by Unimation from Vicarm techniques and with support from General Motors.

“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)

Devol, a self-made engineer, has made other contributions to industrial automation in machine vision and in bar coding.