The content provides the evolution of the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles from the very beginning to the present. Starting from 1849 with Balloons, the UAVs have now evolved so much with the technology and have gained a lot importance in different sectors.

1. MADE BY-
DEVENDER SINGH BOHRA
MEDHA GUPTA

2. The present day small, advanced and
multipurpose drones have been evolved with
time from the various primitive model.
Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have been
around for centuries and were solely used for
military purposes.
The sequential order of the UAVs evolution can
be explained starting from the unmanned
balloons used in 1849 to the present.

3. On 22 August 1849, the Austrians used
UAV for the first time and attacked Venice
using unmanned Balloons loaded with
explosives.

4. Nikola Tesla invented a small unmanned boat
that changes direction on verbal command by
using radio frequencies to switch motors on and
off and presented it in an exhibition at Madison
Square Garden.

5. During the Battle of Neuve Chapelle, the
Aerial imagery was used by the British
Military to capture about 15,000 sky view
maps of the German trench fortifications
in the region.

6. During World War 1, the first UAVs took
flight in the United States, though the
success of UAVs in test flight was erratic
but the military stamped their potential in
the combat.

7. Etienne Oemichen gave a design which had 4
rotors and 8 propellers all driven by one motor
and recorded over 1000 Successful flights. The
First recorded FAI distance record was of 360m
in 1924 for a helicopter.

8. During the period of the 30s, the U.S. Navy
began experimenting with Radio Controlled
Aircraft and finally leading to the invention of
Curtiss N2C-2 DRONE IN 1937 and thereafter
new UAVs emerged as an influential combat
training tool.

9. Reginald Denny sold about 15,000 radio-
controlled target drones to the U.S.
Military to train the anti-aircraft gunners
for World War II.

10. The first large-scale production of
drones by U.S. was initiated by
Reginald Denny.

11. The German military inaugurated the FX-1400,
or “The Fritz X”, a bomb with four small wings
and a radio controller weighing 1362 Kg. It was
the first remotely controlled munition put into
operational use and a great breakthrough for
guided aerial weapons.

12. Model A Quadcopter being designed by George de
Bothezat and Ivan Jerome was the first successful
quadcopter which used varying thrust of all four
propellers in order to control pitch, roll, and yaw,
Although it was difficult for the pilot to fly because of
the workload of trying to control the thrust of all four
props simultaneously.

13. Curtis Wright company designed Curtis
Wright VZ-7 as a US Army Project which
used variable thrust in the four propellers
to control flight so as to simplify the
workload for the Pilot.

14. From the early use of target drones
and remotely piloted combat vehicles,
UAVs took a new role during the
Vietnam War that is of stealth
surveillance.

15. During this time Israel developed the two unpiloted
surveillance machines MASTIFF UAV and the IAA
Scout. Also, the success of the Fire bee continued
through the end of the Vietnam War. In the 1970s, the
U.S. set its sights on other kinds of UAVs while other
countries began to develop their own advanced UAV
systems.

16. Israel outwits Soviet anti-aircraft
technology at the outbreak of
hostilities with Syria, by revealing its
location using a swarm of unmanned
aircraft.

17. Pioneer UAV Program was introduced in the 1980s
when a need for an on-call, inexpensive, unmanned,
over the horizon targeting, reconnaissance and battle
damage assessment (BDA) capability for local
commanders was identified by the U.S. military
operations in Grenada, Lebanon, and Libya. The
expeditious acquisition of UAV systems for fleet
operations using non-developmental technology was
directed by the Secretary of the Navy in July 1985.

18. Reconnaissance Drone was a joint
U.S. and Israeli project which
produced the “RQ2 Pioneer”, a
medium sized reconnaissance drone.

19. Miniature and Micro UAVs became
the part of research and soon came
into action.

20. Predator Drone was first deployed in
Afghanistan to hunt for Osama Bin
Laden.

21. The Parrot AR Drone, a smartphone-
controlled quadcopter for consumers was
introduced at the Consumer Electronics
Show in Las Vegas.

22. Congress required the FAA to
integrate small drones into the
national airspace by 2015.

23. On 60 Minutes, Amazon CEO Jeff
Bezos unveils an audacious plan of
delivery drones and a future service
called Prime Air.

24. Drones for delivery was used by Amazon for the
first time in 2014. Also as the FAA grants an
exemption to film and TV production
companies for drone use, Producer Jerry
Bruckheimer reveals that actor Tom Cruise will
star in Top Gun 2 alongside drones, this story is
from the 27 October 2014, issue of Fortune.

25. In the past 10 years, many small advanced
quadcopters have entered the market that
includes the DJI Phantom and Parrot AR Drone.
This new breed of quadcopters are cheap,
lightweight, and use advanced electronics for
flight control.

26. Drones are executing search and rescue
missions, tracking cattle rustlers, or monitoring
wildfires with minimal cost and little risk of loss
of life everywhere today. It is believed that as
many as 30,000 drones will populate American
skies by 2020 and thereafter its use may
increase rapidly in almost every field.