George Devol: Life Committed to Inventions and Industrial Robots

George Charles Devault Jr. was 9 years old when the word "robot" first appeared in 1921 in the work of Karel Chapeke RUR (Rossum Universal Robots). The robots in the play looked like people and were created in a vat like beer. Unlike Capek's robots, the robots that Devol invented decades later were electromechanical machines. The first digital programmable robot with control, which Devol invented, has revolutionized the production process, which continues to this day. Devol, was a prolific inventor and entrepreneur. His main job is the creation of the first industrial robot "Unimate", which became the first of a series of machines that now automate assembly lines around the world. But the creation of the first industrial robot was just one of his contributions. With more than 40 patents in his hands, Devol spent his life turning ideas into real products.

Devol has always been humble, receptive, and interested in the future. He liked to talk about his inventions, but these were not boastful statements. He came to the excitement of all the technologies that he created and from everything he used as his ideas. While in his presence, everyone felt that they were interacting with one of those minds that come very rarely to change the world, like the inventors of Edison or Tesla.

George was born in a wealthy family in Louisville, Kentucky. George Devol was interested in electricity and cars at an early age. He did not go to college with an engineering bias, instead he created his company.

This was the time of take-off of electric motors, generators, electric transmissions, radio technologies. The first films with sound, known as "sound cinema" were not in the best quality, and Devol exclaimed that to improve the sound, he could use his experience with vacuum tubes, photocells, and circuits. Later, he tries to get a position in the cinema as a specialist in sound.

Competition has pushed him to turn from the path of improving sound to the path of improving other technologies. Using photocells and electron tubes, he knew so well that he eventually created one of the outstanding creations of the modern world: automatic doors. Later he licensed the technology of the photoelectric door.

Devol continued to work with the color of printing and packaging machines, and invented an early version of bar coding, and later also digital magnetic recording. Each new invention moved him closer to the robots.

In 1939, "Westinhaus" at the World Fair in New York exposes an electronic robot. It was a big breakthrough, it was something of a science fiction that dominated the newspaper booths.

During the Second World War, Devol worked in the Sperry Gyroscope, where he participated in the development of radar systems and equipment, conducted microwave tests. Later, he organized the headquarters of Electronics Industries in Greenwich, Connecticut, which will become one of the largest manufacturers of radar and counter-radar devices.

After the war, he worked on several other inventions. He was part of the group that developed the first product, the Microwave "Speedy Winnie", which automatically cooked hot dogs.

In 1954, Devol filed patent documents for a device called the "Programmable Transfer Device". He was looking for a partner for a new business, and found him at a party, they turned out to be Joseph Engelberger, an engineer from Columbia University. Engelberger is the only one who shares the enthusiasm for Deval's science fiction and took the idea to create a car to heart.

For marketing purposes, Devol and Engelberger turned their money from a "programmed transmission device" into a "manipulator", and then a "robot".

The first industrial robot Unimate (articles on modern industrial robots and system integration), the product of their new company Unimation Corp, was equipped with a hydraulic drive, control system, magnetic drum storage, and a discrete, solid-state control component. In 1961, the first "Unimate" was installed at the Genial Motors plant in Trenton, New Jersey, to assist the machine with hot casting. "Unimation Corp" quickly developed robots for welding, as well as other types of robots. Patent No. 2988237 for the first robot was the seed that spawned robots for the industry.

In a subsequent conversation, Devol said that none of his inventions had been accepted so quickly and easily. His persistence and 99 years of life - made the world different.

George Devault died on August 11, 2011, he passed away at the age of 99.