In the Pre-Crisis dimension of Earth-One and its many similar counterparts such as the so-called Pocket Universe, Kal-El has developed and used advanced robotic duplicates of himself since his childhood. But initially as Superboy, the Superboy robots were specifically made to be known as separate beings to Superboy not as substitutes for the real Superboy.
This is not meant to be an exact duplicate to those Superboy robots but more of a modern take.
