PUMA, introduced in 1978, was the Programmable Universal Machine for Assembly industrial robot arm.
Victor Scheinman developed the design for Unimation with support from General Motors. The PUMA used a compact articulated structure with several rotary joints, giving it a range of motion similar to a human arm. It could be programmed to perform assembly and handling operations repeatedly.
The name is an acronym, although the robot is often simply called the PUMA arm. It became influential because its mechanical arrangement and programming approach suited factory automation across many different tasks. PUMA systems were used in research laboratories as well as manufacturing environments.
PUMA should not be confused with SCARA robots, which use a different joint arrangement and are especially common in planar assembly. The earlier Unimate was the first industrial robot, while PUMA represented a later generation of more versatile articulated manipulators.