Robots: six families of real machines
The archive covers working machines only – no characters, no concepts. They fall into six families: industrial, research, space, humanoid, medical and household. The family explains the design more precisely than the year: an assembly-line manipulator and a planetary rover solve different problems with entirely different mechanics.
The six families
- Industrial – 75 machines, the largest group. Manipulators for welding, painting and assembly: one operation repeated more precisely and for longer than a human can.
- Humanoid – 59 machines. The hard part is not the arms but balance and walking.
- Household – 27 machines: cleaning, home assistance, simple service tasks.
- Space – 25 machines: rovers and station manipulators working where repair is impossible.
- Research – 24 machines: university platforms for testing new control principles.
- Medical – 20 machines: surgical systems and rehabilitation devices.
What changed over time
Early robots were mechanics with a fixed program: the motion was set in advance and the environment had to be predictable. Sensors and feedback came next, and the machine began reacting to what it detected. Then autonomy grew: path planning, object recognition, working alongside people without a safety cage. Humanoids stand apart, because they must solve a balance problem a manipulator simply does not have.
What the archive holds
The collectioner.art timeline holds 230 real robots from 1961 to 2025 across 51 organisations, each card with a year, an organisation and a source link.
Open it: the Robots collection. Nearby: rockets and scientific instruments.
Quick answers
Which robot opens the timeline?
The Stanford Cart of 1961.
What families exist?
Industrial, research, space, humanoid, medical and household.
Why so many industrial robots?
Manufacturing automation paid off first; 75 machines here.
How many robots are in the archive?
230 machines from 1961 to 2025 across 51 organisations.