subject: Remote Control Radios [print this page] Remote Control Radios Remote Control Radios
The term is used frequently to refer to the control of model vehicles from a hand-held radio transmitter. Industrial, military, and scientific research organizations make use of radio-controlled vehicles as well.
In 1898 at an exhibition at Madison Square Garden Nikola Tesla demonstrated a small boat which could apparently obey commands from the audience but was in fact controlled by Tesla interpreting the verbal requests and sending appropriate frequencies to tuned circuits in the boat.He was granted a US patent on this invention on November 8, 1898. In 1903, the Spanish engineer Leonardo Torres y Quevedo presented the "Telekino" at the Paris Academy of Science, and was granted a patent in France, Spain, Great Britain and the United States. In 1904, Bat, a Windermere steam launch, was controlled using experimental radio control by its inventor, Jack Kitchen. In 1909 the French inventor Gabet demonstrated what he called his "Torpille Radio-Automatique", a radio controlled torpedo.
In 1917, Archibald Low as head of the RFC Experimental Works, was the first person to use radio control successfully on an aircraft. In the 1920s, various radio-controlled ships were used for naval artillery target practice. The Soviet Red Army used remotely controlled teletanks during 1930s in the Winter War against Finland and fielded at least two teletank battalions at the beginning of the Great Patriotic War. A teletank is controlled by Remote Control Radios from a control tank at a distance of 5001,500 meters, the two constituting a telemechanical group. There were also remotely controlled cutters Iand experimental remotely controlled planes in the Red Army. In the 1930s Britain developed the radio controlled Queen Bee, a remotely controlled unmanned Tiger Moth aircraft for a fleet's gunnery firing practice. The Queen Bee was superseded by the similarly named Queen Wasp, a later, purpose built, target aircraft of higher performance.
Today Remote Control Radios are used in industry for such devices as overhead cranes and switchyard locomotives. Radio-controlled teleoperators are used for such purposes as inspections, and special vehicles for disarming of bombs. Some remotely-controlled devices are loosely called robots, but are more properly categorized as teleoperators since they do not operate autonomously, but only under control of a human operator.
