1982 – “Marilyn Monroe” the Cybot – Shunichi Mizuno (Japanese)

Inventor Shunichi Mizuno, now president of Cybot Corporation in Japan, at work on his robot. Image source: Robots, machines in man's image, Isaac Asimov, Karen A. Frenkel – 1985. Photo by Mark Wexler. Caption: Instead of diamonds, up to 20,000 electronic components are this girl's best friends. Low-[pressure] pneumatic valves controlled by a microcomputer give …

1980 – “Crater Scraper” Walking Beam Model – Peter Holland (British)

The "Space Models" designed by Peter Holland, which appeared in the early Model Maker of the 'fifties onwards, were interesting applications of mechanical principles and some are still available today in the Model Maker Plans Service as constructional drawings. This, his latest, "Space Model" makes use of readily available gear and rack sets and there's …

1980-1 – Unicorn-1 – James A. Gupton, Jr. (American)

Unicorn-One ( Universal Controllable Robot ) is truly universal and a robot that you can build for between two- and-four hundred dollars, depending on your ingenuity and scrounging abilities. It is fully mobile and has the ability to use its arms and hands. It can be controlled by a cable link to a console, by …

1979-80 HEBOT I, II & III – John FitzGerald (British)

Hobby Electronics magazine (November 1979-January 1980) describes an autonomous robot. HEBOT is a free roaming robot which can negotiate obstacles, steer towards a light (infra red) and follow a wire (A.C. current) around your home. HEBOT emits a squeak when it detects light or following a collision. Control is transferred to the wire following circuitry …

1980-82 – ROBART-I Sentry Robot – H. R. Everett (American)

Text and some images sourced from here – http://www.spawar.navy.mil/robots/land/robart/robart.html This link also contains other links to ROBART information, not covered here. ROBART-I was Bart Everett‘s thesis project at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA.  and one of the very first behavior-based autonomous robots ever built. The navigation scheme provided a layered hierarchy of behaviors …