Rajko Tomović (Baja, November 1, 1919 – Belgrade, May 30, 2001) was a Serbian scientist and roboticist. He dealt with information technologies in medicine, medical robotics, and artificial intelligence.

 

He attended high school in Bački Petrovac, Novi Vrbas and Sombor. He moved to Belgrade in 1936, where he finished high school. He enrolled at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering in Belgrade in 1938. Due to the war, he stopped studying, and after the war he graduated in 1946. He was part of the progressive student movement. After the end of the Second World War, he was transferred as a captain from the Yugoslav People’s Army (JNA) to the University of Belgrade.

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He received his doctorate from the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts in 1952 in the field of analog computers. Until 1960, he worked at the “Boris Kidrič” Institute in Vinča, and from 1960 he worked for a longer period at the “Mihajlo Pupin” Institute in Belgrade, where he formed the first robotics group in our country. He was one of the creators of the first digital computer made in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. He is the inventor of the world's first bionic hand called the Belgrade hand. The hand had five fingers that had touch sensors and the ability to grasp comparable to todays. It was the forerunner of all bionic prostheses and artificial aids.

 

He published papers in domestic and foreign magazines; he wrote over 120 scientific papers. He is the author and co-author of 21 books in our country and abroad (France, USA, Russia, Germany).

 

Academic Rajko Tomović was an advisor to the Organisation for European Economic Cooperation (OECD) and the United Nations on issues of technological development. He was one of the leaders of international organizations for automatic control and analog computers. He took part in applied research on functional movement management theory at rehabilitation centers in Miami, Vancouver, and Edmonton.

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​On the occasion of the 100th anniversary of his birth, an exhibition was organized in the Gallery of Science and Technology of SANU at the end of October 2019 and a scientific gathering on November 1, 2019.