UAV's (drones) are well over a century old

 

I was intrigued to read a lengthy history of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV's - also known as "drones") in Air & Space Quarterly.  Here's a brief excerpt.

Elmer Sperry was an American inventor whose wide-ranging interests included the development of gyroscopic stabilizers to reduce the lurching of U.S. Navy ships at sea. He became intrigued with the idea of radio-controlled aircraft, but recognized that stabilization during flight would be essential to make it work. With the assistance of the Navy, Sperry and his son Lawrence developed an automatic gyrostabilizer in 1913, which enabled a Curtiss flying boat to fly straight and level without input from the human pilot on board. On June 18, 1914, Lawrence Sperry and his French assistant Emil Cachin demonstrated the invention at the Aero Club of France’s airplane safety competition. As Sperry stood on one wing of his pilotless flying craft, Cachin on the other, one of the judges on the ground cried out: “Mais, c’est inoui!” (“But that’s unheard of!”). Needless to say, Sperry won the competition’s first prize—50,000 francs ($10,000)—and became famous overnight.

Curtiss-Sperry "Flying Bomb" UAV (1917)

 

Wars accelerate the development of technology, and the drone is no exception. After World War I erupted and the Western Front descended into stalemate, the British decided to take advantage of Sperry’s breakthrough and build a top-secret facility to design the first generation of drones. British engineer, inventor, and television pioneer Archibald Low was given the job, and the Germans considered him to be so capable, they attempted to kill him twice (the second time by a poisoned cigarette). 

Low entered the history books with his engineering project known as “Aerial Target.” Intended to be an aerial torpedo to be used against Zeppelin bombers and U-boats, it had been named Aerial Target to fool the Germans into thinking it was just fodder for testing anti-aircraft weapons. Low’s flying torpedo took off for the first time under radio control in March 1917, a feat that later saw him recognized as the “father of radio guidance systems” and, more recently, “father of the drone.” The initial demonstration was far from perfect—it ended with a spectacular crash landing.

Low's "Aerial Target" (1917)

“A great number of the pieces are in place for remotely piloted aircraft pretty early, by the beginning of World War I,” says Connor. “But what was really lacking was the ability to control the drones effectively, and this was down to the reliability of the radio signals. In so many cases, like the United States’ Kettering aerial torpedo, these projects just devolve into what might be considered a flying bomb. Even Low demonstrated only a degree of control with his Aerial Target: He nearly killed observers on the ground when it crashed during its demonstration flight.”

Kettering "Bug" (1918)

Indeed, a similar misfortune befell the aforementioned Kettering aerial torpedo—known as the “Bug”—during its demonstration flight at a secluded airfield near Dayton, Ohio, where a group of U.S. Army VIPs had gathered to see the first U.S. “guided missile” in action. The miniature wood biplane—named for its inventor Charles F. Kettering—was packed with explosives. A gyro helped maintain the stability of the craft, and a barometer sent signals to small flight controls that were moved by a system of cranks and a bellows (from a player piano) for altitude control. But after taking off, the Bug pivoted off course, at which point it swooped down and headed straight for the reviewing stands, causing officials to dive for cover under the bleachers. Fewer than 50 Bugs were manufactured, and they never saw combat.

Despite these somewhat disappointing initial outcomes, the development of drones continued after the war, while tech nerds of the era remained captivated by radio’s potential. In 1922, Hugo Gernsback, editor of the first science fiction magazine, Amazing Stories, published a book, Radio for All, which had a “really amazing frontispiece,” says Rhys Morus. “It’s a picture of a man of the future, sitting in the future office…and through the window, there is a flying machine in the sky labeled ‘radio-controlled aeroplane.’ ” 

There's much more at the link.  Highly recommended reading.

Those first UAV's were not autonomous at all - they were guided by a pilot who was either on the ground, or in another aircraft flying nearby.  Nevertheless, they were the beginning.  By the end of World War II the first autonomous drones were being developed, and by the Vietnam War a few were successfully used on operations.

Looking at today's battlefields, where UAV's are ubiquitous, it's hard to remember that the concept, at least, is more than a century old!  The technology has finally caught up with the theory.

Peter