What early humanoid automaton did Leonardo da Vinci design in articulated armor?

Leonardo da Vinci designed a robot knight as an early humanoid automaton in articulated armor.

Leonardo’s robot was developed around 1495 for a theatrical or courtly display in Milan. His surviving notes and drawings indicate a seated armored figure that could perform humanlike movements, including raising its arms and moving its head and jaw. Cables, pulleys, and mechanical linkages inside the armor controlled the actions.

The machine was not a programmable robot in the modern electronic sense. It had no computer, sensors, or independent decision-making system. It was an automaton: a device whose predetermined mechanical motions were produced by carefully arranged components.

The robot is often connected with a pageant at the court of Ludovico Sforza, although the precise performance record is limited. In the twentieth century, researchers reconstructed versions of the design from Leonardo’s drawings. These replicas helped demonstrate that the concept’s internal mechanisms were mechanically plausible, even though the original automaton no longer exists.