What did Leonardo da Vinci design as an early robotic humanoid?

Leonardo da Vinci designed a humanoid automaton commonly known as the robot knight. He created the design around 1495 for a pageant at the court of Ludovico Sforza in Milan.

The mechanism was concealed inside a suit of armor. Cables, pulleys, and gears could make the figure sit, stand, raise its visor, and move its arms. Leonardo’s studies of human anatomy and proportions helped him plan the mechanical structure.

No original robot knight survives, and for centuries the design was known mainly through Leonardo’s technical drawings. In 2002, roboticist Mark Rosheim built a working reconstruction based on those drawings and demonstrated its movement.

The device was an automaton, not an artificial-intelligence robot. It followed mechanical motions built into its internal system. The word “robot” was coined much later, so “robot knight” is a modern descriptive name for Leonardo’s mechanical figure.