Udi Peless and Shai Abramson established Friendly Machines in 1995 to develop the world's first robotic lawn mower. They converted a walk-behind lawn mower into the first prototype. After developing additional prototypes, the "Classic" model was publicly introduced in 1997. In 1999, the company changed its name to Friendly Robotics and introduced new RL series models in 2000 with an added base station in 2004. A joint venture led to a robotic vacuum cleaner in 2003.