Leonardo da Vinci designed a robot knight, a mechanical figure clad in armor and capable of programmed movements.
The design was created around 1495, probably for a court celebration in Milan. Leonardo’s sketches show a knight-like shell containing a system of pulleys, cables, gears, and levers. The mechanism was intended to move the figure’s arms and perhaps its head and jaw, creating the appearance of a living armored man.
No original robot knight has been found, and the surviving drawings do not provide every construction detail. In 2002, roboticist Mark Rosheim built a model based on Leonardo’s notes and drawings. Later reconstructions have explored different interpretations of the incomplete evidence.
The robot was an automaton, not an autonomous robot in the modern artificial-intelligence sense. Its movements would have been mechanically prearranged and powered by an operator or stored mechanical energy.