[1] Foregoing higher education, Devol went into business in 1932, forming United Cinephone to produce variable area recording directly onto film for the new sound motion pictures ("talkies").

[1] In 1939, Devol applied for a patent for proximity controls for use in laundry press machines, based on a radio frequency field.

[5] Around that time, Devol sold his interest in United Cinephone and approached Sperry Gyroscope to pitch his ideas on radar technology.

After a short stint as eastern sales manager of electronics products, which he felt "wasn't his ball of wax", Devol left RCA to develop ideas that eventually led to the patent application for the first industrial robot.

[5] Devol was part of the team that developed the first commercial use of microwave oven technology, the Speedy Weeny,[6] which automatically cooked and dispensed hotdogs in places such as Grand Central Terminal.

While the magnetic recording system proved too slow for business data, Devol's invention was re-purposed as a machine control that would eventually become the "brains" of the Unimate robot.

"[5] After applying for this patent Devol searched for a company willing to give him financial backing to develop his programmable articles transfer system.

Through family connections, Devol obtained an audience with a partner in the firm Manning, Maxwell and Moore in Stratford, Connecticut.

[11] The first Unimate robot was installed at GM's Inland Fisher Guide Plant in Ewing Township, New Jersey, in 1961 to lift hot pieces of metal from a die-casting machine and stack them.

In 1978, the PUMA (Programmable Universal Machine for Assembly) robot was developed by Unimation from Vicarm (Victor Scheinman) and with support from General Motors.