Making Shakey, the world’s first intelligent, mobile robot

Shakey, the world’s first mobile, intelligent robot, was developed at Stanford Research Institute (now SRI International) between 1966 and 1972. Peter E. Hart worked on this project from the day it started until the day it ended (by which time he was the project leader).

He will describe how the project got launched, how they approached this new world of robots, what they actually did, and what the consequences have been for current technology and for modern life. Along the way, he will describe how people reacted to Shakey at the time. He will close with a perspective on the historical context of Robotics, and thoughts about what robots might do for human-kind in the future.

Presenter(s)

Peter E. Hart has founded or led half a dozen companies and international research centers, and has invented or developed the theory of some of the most widely used procedures in modern computing. His technical writings have been cited over 75,000 times, which, according to Google Scholar makes him the most-cited author in the field of Robotics and the sixth most-cited author in the field of Computer Science. He holds over 125 patents, and is a Fellow of the IEEE, the ACM, the AAAI, and the Rensselaer Alumni Association. He is also a Member of the SRI Hall of Fame.