What device did Leonardo da Vinci design to reproduce human walking using linked mechanical parts?

Leonardo da Vinci designed a mechanical knight to reproduce human walking using linked mechanical parts.

The automaton was created around 1495 for a pageant in Milan, probably under the patronage of Ludovico Sforza. Leonardo’s surviving sketches show an armored figure powered by an internal system of gears and cables. The mechanism could move its arms and jaw and may have been able to sit or stand.

The machine was not a robot in the modern electronic sense. It had no electricity, computer, or autonomous software; its movements came from mechanical transmission and stored or applied human power. “Mechanical knight” refers to the reconstructed interpretation of Leonardo’s design.

In the early 2000s, robotics expert Mark Rosheim built a working reconstruction based on Leonardo’s drawings. The reconstruction helped demonstrate how the internal mechanisms could have produced the movements suggested by the sketches, although some details remain interpretive.