MASTERS OF MANUFACTURING: Joseph F. Engelberger

Manufacturing Engineering, Jul 2006 by Waurzyniak, Patrick

This is the fifth annual installment in an article series we call Masters of Manufacturing. In these articles, we honor a distinguished figure in manufacturing technology, and by doing so, we hope to remind readers that a career of great achievement in manufacturing is still possible.

Often called the "Father of Robotics," Joseph F. Engelberger earned his BS in physics and later an MS degree in electrical engineering at Columbia University before embarking on his career, starting as an automation engineer designing controls for nuclear and jet engine applications. In 1956, Engelberger began development of an industrial robot, and he later founded and served as the first president of Unimation Inc., builder of the world's first industrial robot, the Unimate, that was initially installed in a die-casting operation at a General Motors factory in New Jersey in 1961.

Author of numerous technical articles and two books on robotics, Robotics in Practice and Robotics in Service, Engelberger in 1984 founded a new company, Transitions Research Corp. which became HelpMate Robotics Inc., with the mission to give robots a spectrum of sensory perception enabling mobile, sensate robots to work with human mentors in service activities. The company's first successful service robot, HelpMate, was a robotic hospital courier. In 1999, HelpMate Robotics was sold to Cardinal Health, which merged it into its subsidiary Pyxis Corp.

Recipient of several honorary degrees and numerous international awards of recognition, Engelberger recently retired from active management, but he continues to pursue his dream of developing a two-armed, mobile, sensate, and articulate robot that could be a servant-companion for elderly and infirm individuals who otherwise would need nursing home care. Engelberger lives with his wife Marge in Newtown, CT. In an exclusive interview with Manufacturing Engineering, Engelberger discussed his life, his work, and his vision for the future of robotics.

Manufacturing Engineering: When did you start thinking about robots?

Joseph Engelberger: I went to Columbia University under the auspices of the Navy V12 program, and I followed some years behind Isaac Asimov, who wrote the book I, Robot; incidentally, the movie doesn't do it justice. That inspired me, and I had it in the back of my mind that that was a great thing to do. The Navy made a physicist of me, and it was nice to get out of the Navy and have a whole bunch of companies wonder what a physicist was. So it was very easy for me to get a job, and I went into manufacturing, developing and manufacturing controls for jet engines and for nuclear power plants. The Navy had me from 1942-46 before they let me out, and I was working on the atom bomb project down at Bikini Island before that, so I had a lot of background.

ME: Were you a fan of Isaac Asimov's writing?

Engelberger: I was a big fan and years later, when we had our robot company going, I invited him in to speak to our employees. One of the things he said was, 'I wrote these stories to pay for my college education. I didn't think anybody would really do it.' He was an inspiration, and then a peculiar thing happened. I was in the business of high-tech nuclear controls and at a cocktail party, I met a guy named George Devol. He had a patent, called Programmable Manipulator; I looked at it and said, 'You know what? That sounds like a robot to me.' So I had the company I was with then take a license under that patent. My position was, 'If I look at what we do in controls today, we have the technology to do this. We could make an industrial robot.'

ME: This was in 1956?

Engelberger: Yeah. At that point, in the company I had a few people working on what the market conditions could be, and I think that's very important, because other companies that would try to compete later on failed. We visited 15 companies in Bridgeport, Connecticut. We visited General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler, and came up with what this thing should do to be satisfactory in this industry-and out of that came the design of the Unimate.

ME: What company were you working for at the time?

Engelberger: Manning, Maxwell, and Moore. Mr. Moore, who was my immediate boss, came to my defense, and I was able to get money to buy a little operation in Danbury. I got outside directors and convinced them to give me a chance to raise some money. They gave me three months to raise the money, then after that I took over the license. We didn't have the capability to do the robot thing anymore, so I got the license from George Devol. We started modestly to get the development going again. It wasn't until 1961 that we had a machine ready to go and working. We placed it in a General Motors plant in Ternstedt, New Jersey, on a die-casting operation.

ME: How were robots integrated into factories?

Engelberger: If you recall, we picked male labor and some jobs that took two hands to do. We weren't making two-handed robots-we were making one big strong arm. So it had to lift heavy things, and it had to go more than one shift to pay off. That means the ideal thing was a job involving major capital equipment. The first job was a die-casting machine. Here's a big piece of equipment; one wants to run it around the clock, because you paid a lot of money for it. The parts were only about 30 to 40 lb [13.5-18 kg], but hot as hell. They came out hot from the die-casting machine, then they have to be quenched and put into a trim press. A tough, miserable job for a guy. We used to say, The jobs that we want are the hot, hazardous, and boring.'