Joe Engelberger

Engelberger died on December 1, 2015, in Newtown, Connecticut, a little more than four months after celebrating his 90th birthday.

Engelberger's most famous co-invention, the Unimate industrial robotic arm, was among the first inductees into the Robot Hall of Fame in 2003.

The 2000 World Automation Congress was dedicated to Engelberger, who delivered the keynote address. Even after his departure from HelpMate and well into his 80s, he remained active in the promotion and development of robots for use in elder care. He notably discouraged the notion of legged robots, arguing that robots should use wheels for locomotion, although he supported the use of robotic arms to allow the machines to interact with their surroundings. He worked on developing a two-armed robot to act as a "servant-companion" to seniors with limited mobility.

After Engelberger was awarded the Japan Prize in 1997, Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut delivered a floor speech in the U.S. Senate in praise and recognition of the inventor, calling HelpMate Robotics "an example of the way that a patient federal investment in science and technology can lead to new products that employ Americans and make for a better quality of life."

HelpMate was acquired by Cardinal Health in the late 1990s, a move Engelberger came to regret, complaining that the new owners moved away from his preferred model of renting out robots toward selling off used, depreciated models.

After observing the help for his aging parents, Engelberger saw the robotics automations could be used in the medical field. In 1984, Engelberger founded Transitions Research Corporation. He introduced the HelpMate, a mobile robot hospital courier, as the flagship product of his new company. He hoped to kick-start a new industry for in-home robots, but he started in 1988 by selling his first HelpMate to Danbury Hospital, located in the same Connecticut city where his company was based. The medical robot was successful enough that the hospital ended up purchasing another, and within a decade, well over 100 hospitals worldwide operated HelpMates, whether purchased outright or rented from Engelberger's company, which he renamed HelpMate Robotics Inc.

Engelberger published Robotics in Practice in 1980. The book became a classic in the field and has been translated into six languages. Robotics in Practice was followed by Robotics in Service in 1989.

Unimation purchased Victor Scheinman's Vicarm Inc. in 1977, and with Scheinman's help, the company created and began producing the Programmable Universal Machine for Assembly, a new model of robotic arm, and using Scheinman's cutting-edge VAL programming language. However, the automotive companies that had been Unimation's earliest and most reliable clients began moving away from the use of hydraulically powered robotic arms in the early 1980s in favor of electric motors, a change that Engelberger vehemently opposed. Sales fell, and the company was acquired by Westinghouse in 1982 for $107 million. Engelberger, who had served as Unimation's chief executive since its inception, left the company not long thereafter.

In 1966, Engelberger and a Unimate robot appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. In the segment, the robot poured a beer, sank a golf putt, and directed the band.

Finding himself jobless but with a business partner and an idea, Engelberger co-founded Unimation with Devol, creating the world's first robotics company. In 1957, he also founded Consolidated Controls Corporation. As president of Unimation, Engelberger collaborated with Devol to engineer and produce an industrial robot under the brand name Unimate. The first Unimate robotic arm was installed at a General Motors Plant in Ewing Township, New Jersey, in 1961.

Engelberger received his B.S. in physics in 1946, and M.S. in Electrical Engineering in 1949 from Columbia University. He worked as an engineer with Manning, Maxwell and Moore, where he met inventor George Devol at a Westport cocktail party in 1956, two years after Devol had designed and patented a rudimentary industrial robotic arm. However, Manning, Maxwell and Moore was sold and Engelberger's division was closed that year.

Joe Engelberger was born on July 26, 1925 in Brooklyn, New York, USA.