TABLE OF CONTENTS Unmanned aviation had its beginnings with the models built and flown by Cayley, Stringfellow, Du Temple, and other aviation pioneers as precursors to their attempts at manned flight in the first half of the nineteenth century (see Chapter 7). These models were used as the technology testbeds for larger, man-carrying versions, and in this sense they were the forerunners of manned aviation. The child's rubber band-powered toy of today represented the leading edge of aeronautics in that era, and through such models the advantages of wing dihedral and camber were revealed and studied.
In its broadest definition (i.e., aerodynamic flight without a human on board), unmanned aviation encompasses a wide range of flying devices. The genealogy of unmanned aircraft is depicted in the following figure. Starting from its roots as an "aerial torpedo," the forerunner of today's cruise missiles, its family tree has branched out to include guided glide bombs, target drones, decoys, recreational and sport models, research aircraft, reconnaissance aircraft, combat aircraft, and even exotic astroplanes aircraft designed to fly in the atmospheres of other worlds. Unmanned aircraft in these last four branches are widely referred to today as unmanned aerial vehicles.
The term unmanned aerial vehicle or UAV came into general use in the early 1990s to describe robotic aircraft and replaced the term remotely piloted vehicle (RPV), which was used during the Vietnam War and afterward. Joint Publication 1-02, the Department of Defense Dictionary, defines a UAV as
A powered, aerial vehicle that does...
