Leonardo da Vinci designed a robot knight, a humanoid machine intended to move its arms and head through an internal mechanical system.
The design is reconstructed from drawings in the Codex Atlanticus and related studies. It used a system of pulleys, cables, and gears inside an armor-like body. The mechanisms were arranged so that operating parts of the machine could produce movements such as raising the arms, moving the elbows, and turning the head.
Leonardo’s robot was probably created for a court entertainment rather than as an autonomous artificial intelligence. The machine is associated with celebrations at the court of Ludovico Sforza in Milan around 1495, although the exact historical performance details remain uncertain.
Modern researchers, including Mario Taddei and Mark Rosheim, have constructed working reconstructions from the surviving evidence. The robot knight is therefore best understood as a mechanically operated automaton, not a programmable electronic robot in the modern sense.