Jean Vertut (http://cyberneticzoo.com/teleoperators/1970-2-virgule-remote-controlled-manipulator-jean-vertut-french/), a French engineer, is widely credited with the best and most popular designs for remotely-operated manipulators used in the nuclear industry. Research on devices for nuclear applications is described in the chapter. Here are some other reference links:
http://robotics.me.utexas.edu/index.html - research group working on robots for hazardous environments.
In this video, one watches the fully automatic Port-Deployed Glovebox Manipulator: Pick and Place in operation. Compare the speed and dexterity of this device with the 1950s era remotely controlled manipulator arms mentioned above. It is hard for automatic devices to even approach the speed of manually-controlled devices, even today after 60 years of robotics research and development.