Leonardo da Vinci designed a humanoid robot around 1495 as a mechanical human figure.
The machine was intended to sit or stand inside a suit of armor. A system of cables, pulleys, and gears could make its jaw, arms, and head move, creating the appearance of an animated knight.
Leonardo developed the design while working in Milan, probably in connection with court entertainments and technical displays. It was not an autonomous robot in the modern electronic sense; it was a programmable-looking mechanical automaton powered by human or stored mechanical force.
The original machine has not survived. In the early 21st century, researchers and museum teams built reconstructions from Leonardo’s drawings and notes, showing that many of the proposed movements were mechanically plausible.