George Devol and Joseph Engelberger develop the first industrial robot – a two-tonne machine with a program on a magnetic drum controlling hydraulic actuators. 1959 Kuka launches the first robot with six electromechanically driven axes. KTK (later to become Control Techniques) is set up to manufacture drives in mid-Wales by Ken Briggs, Trevor Wheatley and Kevin Curran. 1973 1970 1983 Unimation installs the first production line industrial robot at a GM plant to make door and window handles and other components. 1961 Fanuc introduces the Model 1 – the first electric servo-driven robot, allowing for more precise and energy-efficient movements. 1974 Hitachi develop the world’s first visionbased intelligent robot to assemble items from plan drawings. 1969 Honeywell delivers the first DCS (distributed control system), using microprocessors to control processes digitally. ABB launches an industrial robot with a payload of up to 60kg and delivers it to Saab to weld car bodies. Allen-Bradley (now part of Rockwell Automation) introduces the Data Highway, capable of replacing miles of hardwired controls with shopfloor networks. 1979 GM and a consortium of tech companies initiate MAP (the Manufacturing Automation Protocol) to standardise communications between different vendors' industrial machines. 1982 Commercialisation of rare-earth neodymiumiron-boron (NdFeB) magnets enables the rapid development of brushless DC motors, reducing motor sizes and weights, while boosting torque. Early 1980s Modicon releases the Modbus communications protocol. Rockwell International purchases Allen‑Bradley for $1.651bn. 1985 The Finnish company Stromberg (later to become part of ABB), installs three LV AC drives to control motor speeds at a sawmill. 1975 Researchers at the University of Rhode Island in the US, demonstrate a robot system that used machine vision to pick randomly oriented parts from a bin. 1980 Electric Drives makes its debut as a 72-page spinoff from Electrical Review magazine, with Mike Douglas as editor and Ken Purchase as advertising sales manager. 1984 Ken and Mike buy Electric Drives from its publisher, IPC, and set up their own company, Kamtech, to publish it. They take on Doug Devlin as sales representative for the Midlands. The first PLC, the Modicon 084, delivered by Bedford Associates to General Motors to control metal cutting, hole drilling, material handling, assembly and testing. A SHORT HISTORY OF DRIVES AND CONTROLS
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