What self-propelled machine designed by Leonardo da Vinci is often called an early robot?

Leonardo da Vinci designed a self-propelled cart often described as an early robot or programmable vehicle.

Leonardo’s drawings from around 1478 show a cart powered by coiled springs. The springs could be wound before use, and a system of gears controlled the cart’s movement. The design may have been intended for theatrical performances, court spectacles, or ceremonial displays rather than transportation.

The cart could move without a person pushing it, but it was not an autonomous robot in the modern electronic sense. Its actions were mechanically programmed by the arrangement of gears and cams. In 2006, engineers at the Institute and Museum of the History of Science in Florence built a working replica based on Leonardo’s drawings.

The machine is also called Leonardo’s robot or the Leonardo robot, although the surviving evidence supports a mechanical automaton more specifically than a humanoid robot. The reconstruction helped show that the design was mechanically plausible.