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George Charles Devol
Using the Photocells and vacuum tubes, he knew so well, he ended up creating one of the technological marvel of the modern world: the automatic door. He licensed the technology to a firm called Yale & Towne, which commercialized it as the ‘Phantom doorman’ Photoelectric door. -
Devol programmable robot arm
In the early 1950s, before the advent of industrial robotics, Mr. Devol built on his own work in in electrical engineering and machine controls to design a mechanical arm that could be programed to repeat precise tasks, like grasping and lifting. To adapt and apply the ideas of Mr. Devol and other innovaters, and soon came up with the Unimate, an early and highly successful effort to replace factory workers with robotic machinery.
