The third best robot would be... SHAKEY! Developed by Stanford Research Institute International, Shakey had jerky, often nonsensical movements. But that didn't stop the 1972 robot from entering the history books as the first machine to locate objects by itself, steer around them - and then explain its logic for doing so. Shakey the robot was the first mobile robot to be able to reason about its own actions. While other robots would have to be instructed on each individual step of completing a larger task, Shakey could analyze the command and break it down into basic chunks by itself.
Due to its nature, the project integrated research in robotics, computer vision, and natural language. Because of this, it was the first project that melded logical reasoning and physical action. "Shakey" was the first mobile robot with the ability to perceive and reason about its surroundings. He was a subject of SRI's Artificial Intelligence Center research from 1966 to 1972, and he could perform tasks that required planning, route-finding, and the rearranging of simple objects. The robot greatly influenced modern robotics and techniques; today, it resides in the Computer History Museum. The possibilities of computer science and artificial intelligence also caught the public's imagination. After an April 10, 1968, article in The New York Times about Shakey and two other robot efforts (at MIT and Stanford University), Life magazine referred to Shakey as the "first electronic person" in 1970. In November 1970, National Geographic also carried a picture of Shakey in an article on the present uses and future possibilities of computers. Shakey was elected to the Carnegie Mellon's Robot Hall of Fame in 2004.
Read more at: http://www.sri.com/work/timeline-innovation/timeline.php?timeline=computing-digital#!&innovation=shakey-the-robot
Due to its nature, the project integrated research in robotics, computer vision, and natural language. Because of this, it was the first project that melded logical reasoning and physical action. "Shakey" was the first mobile robot with the ability to perceive and reason about its surroundings. He was a subject of SRI's Artificial Intelligence Center research from 1966 to 1972, and he could perform tasks that required planning, route-finding, and the rearranging of simple objects. The robot greatly influenced modern robotics and techniques; today, it resides in the Computer History Museum. The possibilities of computer science and artificial intelligence also caught the public's imagination. After an April 10, 1968, article in The New York Times about Shakey and two other robot efforts (at MIT and Stanford University), Life magazine referred to Shakey as the "first electronic person" in 1970. In November 1970, National Geographic also carried a picture of Shakey in an article on the present uses and future possibilities of computers. Shakey was elected to the Carnegie Mellon's Robot Hall of Fame in 2004.
Read more at: http://www.sri.com/work/timeline-innovation/timeline.php?timeline=computing-digital#!&innovation=shakey-the-robot