Milestone
A humanoid robot works 11 months at a car factory
Figure AI said its robot Figure 02 was put to work at a BMW factory in the United States for 11 months and took part in producing 30,000 cars.
Source Figure AI news
AI EncyclopediaTimelines by field4/5
Robots timeline
Key moments, newest first
From 1961, when the first robot arm went into a factory, to today, as humanoid robots begin to understand speech and work in factories.
11 eventsRelease 6Milestone 3Research 2
2025
Research
Gemini Robotics brings an AI model for robots
Google DeepMind announced a model based on Gemini that lets a robot arm handle even objects it has never seen when given spoken instructions.
Source Google DeepMind blog
2024
Release
A new electric Atlas appears
Boston Dynamics, now owned by Hyundai Motor Group, retired the hydraulic Atlas and unveiled a new electric humanoid robot.
Source Wikipedia — Atlas (robot)
2023
Research
RT-2 is a robot model that understands speech and acts
Google DeepMind announced a "vision-language-action" model that turns knowledge learned from the web into robot movements.
Source Google DeepMind blog — RT-2
2020
Milestone
Anyone can ride a robotaxi with no safety driver
Waymo opened its self-driving taxi service, which runs with no safety driver, to the general public for the first time in the Phoenix area of the United States.
Source Wikipedia — Waymo
Release
The four-legged robot Spot goes on sale to everyone
Boston Dynamics began selling Spot, a four-legged walking robot, to the public.
Source Wikipedia — Spot (robot)
2015
Milestone
HUBO wins the DARPA robotics contest
In the final of the DARPA Robotics Challenge, a US contest on disaster-response tasks, the KAIST team's DRC-HUBO took first place.
2004
Release
KAIST completes HUBO
KAIST researchers completed HUBO, a humanoid robot that walks on two legs, which they had been building since 2002.
Source Korean Wikipedia — HUBO
2002
Release
The Roomba robot vacuum goes on sale
The Roomba, a robot that moves around a home and cleans on its own, appeared, and household robots began to sell widely.
Source Wikipedia — Roomba
2000
Release
Honda unveils ASIMO
ASIMO appeared, a humanoid robot that walks on two legs and can climb stairs.
Source Wikipedia — ASIMO
1961
Release
Unimate becomes the first industrial robot
Unimate, the first industrial robot, started work on an assembly line at a GM factory in New Jersey in the United States.
Source Wikipedia — Unimate
New to this field? Start with First steps in robots, a plain-language guide to the big picture.
The events were chosen and described by AI, and each date was checked against the source listed with it (an official announcement, a paper or Wikipedia). Dates follow the source: Korean events in Korean time, others in local time or UTC, so a day's difference is possible. The timeline does not grow by itself; new events are checked and added by hand. Report an errorLast updated