What Leonardo da Vinci machine is often called the first humanoid robot?

Leonardo da Vinci’s humanoid machine is commonly called the robot knight.

Leonardo designed the robot knight around 1495 while working in Milan for Ludovico Sforza. His notes and drawings show a human-shaped figure inside armor, operated by cables, pulleys, and gears. The mechanisms could produce movements such as sitting, standing, raising the arms, and moving the jaw.

The machine was probably connected with court entertainment and military display rather than intended as an autonomous soldier. Leonardo’s surviving evidence is incomplete, so modern reconstructions use his anatomical studies and mechanical sketches to infer how the system worked.

The robot knight is often called the first humanoid robot, but it was not a modern robot in the electronic or artificial-intelligence sense. It had no independent perception or programmable computer. Its historical importance comes from combining a humanlike external form with mechanical actuation and planned movement.