Shakey

The SRI robot joined a camera, a planner and an executive: it built a model of the room, made a plan and carried it out, correcting as it went.

Why it matters

Perception, reasoning and action closed into one system for the first time, the scheme later called sense-plan-act.

Shakey moved through a simplified world of blocks and ramps, very slowly, and any perception error spoiled the plan. The project produced the A* algorithm, the STRIPS planner (1971) and practical line extraction. The approach's limit, recomputing the whole plan after any change, became the target of criticism in the 1980s.

Event record

Event date

May 1969

Timeline date

Event date

Verification

Sources gathered automatically · September 17, 2026

Lines

ID

evt-0114

Presented at IJCAI-69 in May 1969; work on the robot ran from 1966 to 1972.

Sources

primary A Mobile Automaton: An Application of Artificial Intelligence Techniques
IJCAI-69 · Published May 1969
secondary 75 Years of Innovation: Shakey the Robot
SRI International

Related events

Earlier

Builds on The A* algorithm 1968
The robot's route planning rested on the algorithm described a year earlier.
- A Mobile Automaton: An Application of Artificial Intelligence Techniques · IJCAI-69
Builds on The resolution principle 1965
Action planning was built on resolution theorem proving.
- A Mobile Automaton: An Application of Artificial Intelligence Techniques · IJCAI-69

Later

Builds on STRIPS 1971links to this record
The planner grew out of controlling the Shakey robot and replaced theorem proving in it.
- STRIPS: A New Approach to the Application of Theorem Proving to Problem Solving · Artificial Intelligence
Related WABOT-1 1973links to this record
A second attempt in the same years to join perception, decision and motion in one body.
Contrasts TAIR: a robot run by a neuron-like network 1975links to this record
The paper sets its network against the framework of robot AI of the day, which it calls too narrow: most procedures do not admit inconsistent data and struggle in real time. Shakey is not named in the surviving text and the scan has no reference list, so this is a contrast of approaches, not a citation.
- Transport Robot With Network Control System · International Joint Conferences on Artificial Intelligence (Proceedings of IJCAI-75, pages 727-730)
Related The Stanford Cart crosses a room 1979links to this record
The same idea of autonomous motion, but the navigation is built on stereo vision.
Contrasts Subsumption architecture 1986links to this record
The robot acts without building a world model, the step Shakey's scheme rested on.
- A Robust Layered Control System for a Mobile Robot · MIT AI Laboratory
Related Probabilistic roadmaps 1996links to this record
Shakey planned actions in a world of a few blocks and searched paths with A*; here motion planning is for bodies with many degrees of freedom, where a grid for A* does not fit in memory.
Related Siri 2010links to this record
The institution that built Shakey delivered a voice assistant forty years later.