What named machine did Leonardo da Vinci design to imitate a walking human?

Leonardo da Vinci designed a robotic knight to imitate the movements of a walking human.

The machine was created around 1495, probably for a court entertainment in Milan under Ludovico Sforza. Leonardo’s surviving drawings show a mechanical figure covered by armor. A system of cables, pulleys, and gears could make the figure sit, stand, raise its arms, and move its jaw.

The original machine was lost, and its exact performance cannot be observed directly. In the twenty-first century, researchers reconstructed versions from Leonardo’s sketches. Those reconstructions demonstrated that the design could produce several humanlike movements when built with appropriate materials and careful mechanical interpretation.

The robotic knight was not an electronic robot. It was a mechanical automaton, meaning that programmed movement came from physical mechanisms rather than software or electricity. Its importance lies in Leonardo’s understanding of anatomy, leverage, coordinated motion, and theatrical engineering.