An Islamic View of UAVs: - OnIslam.net

UAVs: Viewing the World from Above - Technology - Health & Science - OnIslam.net

A Patent and a Magical Invention

The first one who wondered about a remotely piloted vehicle was the Serbian scientist Nikola Tesla.

The same 110 years old electronic robot boat
Tesla called telautomaton has now been rebuilt
by the Nikola Tesla Museum in Belgrade

In 1898 he registered the patent no. 613809 named “Method of and apparatus for controlling mechanism of moving vessels or vehicles”. He created an unmanned boat or a ‘tele-automated’ one as he used to name it.


Tesla’s Miracle Boat Comes to Life - De-Construct.net

The craft were constructed of iron, powered by a electric battery of his own design, and equipped with a radio-mechanical receiver that accepted commands from a  wireless transmitter. The boats were equipped with a large whip antenna, a modular space that could carry a charge, diving rudders, a prop and electric running lights that  could all be remotely controlled.





Tesla demonstrated the vessels to a shocked crowd in an indoor pool at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The crowd was amazed how Tesla, always a showman, maneuvered his six-foot-long boat in patterns through the water, and then stopped and started the craft. He even had the forethought to equip his boats with a crude logic gate which prevented them from being taken over by another transmitter other than his own. The craft alarmed those in the crowd who saw it and who claimed it to be everything from magic and telepathy to being piloted by a trained monkey hidden inside.

Hewitt-Sperry Automatic Airplane

Tesla faced a big obstacle in airplanes, which is ‘controlling’. Many UAV designs were created in the past but with real controlling problems till Elmer Sperry developed his magnificent measuring unit the ‘Gyroscope’ which is a sensor to measure angular deflection. On September 12, 1917 during World War I, the Hewitt-Sperry Automatic Airplane made its first flight as a "flying bomb" to demonstrate the concept of unmanned aircrafts or as an aerial torpedo nowadays.

^{UAVs in Muslim Countries}

Many Muslim countries use UAVs in their army such as Egypt, Jordan, Malaysia, Pakistan, Turkey, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Algeria, but the largest producing Muslim country is Iran.

In addition to the military field, the UAE is developing UAVs to be used in governmental services like delivering National ID to citizens via drones. The project is still under development yet it’s a promising step.