page_title: Shakey the robot
section_title: Software
hierarchical_section_title: Shakey the robot / Software
caption_attribution_description: English: SRI's Shakey, the first mobile robot that could make decisions about how to move in its surroundings
context_page_description: Shakey the Robot was the first general-purpose 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 commands and break them down into basic chunks by itself.
  Due to its nature, the project combined research in robotics, computer vision, and natural language processing. Because of this, it was the first project that melded logical reasoning and physical action. Shakey was developed at the Artificial Intelligence Center of Stanford Research Institute.
  Some of the most notable results of the project include the A* search algorithm, the Hough transform, and the visibility graph method.
context_section_description: The robot's programming was primarily done in LISP. The Stanford Research Institute Problem Solver (STRIPS) planner it used was conceived as the main planning component for the software it utilized. As the first robot that was a logical, goal-based agent, Shakey experienced a limited world. A version of Shakey's world could contain a number of rooms connected by corridors, with doors and light switches available for the robot to interact with.
  Shakey had a short list of available actions within its planner. These actions involved traveling from one location to another, turning the light switches on and off, opening and closing the doors, climbing up and down from rigid objects, and pushing movable objects around. The STRIPS automated planner could  devise a plan to enact all the available actions, even though Shakey himself did not have the capability to execute all the actions within the plan personally.
  An example mission for Shakey might be something like:
  "An operator types the command "push the block off the platform" at a computer console. Shakey looks around, identifies a platform with a block on it, and locates a ramp in order to reach the platform. Shakey then pushes the ramp over to the platform, rolls up the ramp onto the platform, and pushes the block off the platform. Mission accomplished."
caption: Shakey in 1972
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