Short answers, pulled from the story.
The word robot was invented by the painter and writer Josef Čapek for a 1920 play. He suggested the term to his brother Karel Čapek to describe the creatures in Rossum's Universal Robots. The word comes from the Czech robota, meaning forced labor or drudgery.
William Grey Walter created the first electronic autonomous robots in 1948 at the Burden Neurological Institute in Bristol, England. He named the three-wheeled machines Elmer and Elsie, which were often described as tortoises due to their shape and slow movement. These robots used purely analogue electronics to simulate brain processes and could find their way to a recharging station.
George Devol built the first commercially successful digital and programmable robot in 1954 and called it the Unimate. He sold the first Unimate to General Motors in 1960, and it was installed in 1961 in a plant in Trenton, New Jersey. This machine replaced humans in performing repetitive and dangerous tasks like handling molten metal.
The robot named Baxter was introduced in 2012 and learns by guidance without requiring software engineers to program it. Any regular worker can teach Baxter how to perform a task by moving its hands in the desired motion and having Baxter memorize them. By 2014, 190 companies in the US had bought Baxters, which are being used commercially in the UK.
The EATR robot can continually refuel itself using organic substances, including chicken fat, which it finds on battlefields or other local environments. This fuel source has generated public concerns over its autonomous capabilities. The development of unmanned combat air vehicles like the BAE Systems Mantis has further intensified the debate over autonomous military robots.