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Smithsonian Robotics

The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History has a significant collection of historical automatons and robots.

The automatons -- mechanical clockwork imitations of human and animal life -- date from the 16th through the early 20th centuries. Most of the examples come from Europe. They illustrate the deep roots of investigations into the nature of life itself, the mechanical models built for such studies, and the entertainment value of such models.

The robots, mostly American, date from the late 1940s to the present and come from fantasy and entertainment, industry, and research. The museum has examples of working robots from three main areas of function: stationary robots that transfer things from place to place by arms, robots that move independent of a mount by rolling or walking, and robots that sense and learn.

Today, real robots are more numerous. They mostly work on industrial production lines and often take onthe chores and appearance of human arms or hands, to do things we will not or cannot do for ourselves.

But researchers are working to extend the use of robots for tasks not humanly possible. It is likely we will see more of them in the future -- as aids for medicine and surgery, for military and security, and even for exploring, if not a galaxy far away, at least the far reaches of our own solar system.

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