In recent years, drones have rapidly entered people’s vision. Whether in films, games, or virtual worlds, or in real fields such as military, public safety services, resource monitoring and protection, natural disaster response, and aerial photography, drones are constantly refreshing people’s imagination, facing one new challenge after another. Looking back at the origin and development of drones, it is not difficult to find that behind their brilliant achievements lies humanity’s long-standing yearning for the sky and the accumulation of revolutionary technologies.
1 Understanding Drones
A drone, as the name suggests, is a flying vehicle that does not carry a pilot during flight, but it does not mean that it does not require human control. Generally, drone users need to control its flight remotely through a remote control device or set flight programs in advance. We can assume a simple scenario: when a drone flies out of sight, it is difficult for people to control it in real-time based on the environment. At this point, the drone needs to have the “ability” to make judgments on its own, maintain a certain flight state, or adjust according to the actual environment during task execution, which is the core of “autonomous flight”.In fact, to successfully complete a task, a drone requires not only an aerial platform and the mission equipment it carries but also ground control equipment, data communication devices, maintenance equipment, as well as command control and necessary operational and maintenance personnel. Larger drones also require specialized launch/recovery devices. Therefore, from this perspective, the complete meaning of a drone should be referred to as an Unmanned Aerial System (UAS).
2 Initial Exploration of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles by Humans
Wooden Bird
The human desire and attempts to fly have a long history. The wooden bird mentioned in many ancient texts is an early attempt by people to create unmanned flying vehicles. In Chinese legends, those who could create flying wooden birds include Lu Ban, Mozi, and Zhang Heng. Similar records can be found in texts such as “Han Feizi: External Reserves, Upper Left” and “Mozi: Lu Questions,” but none describe the structure of the wooden bird. It is recorded that in 405 BC, the ancient Greek mathematician and mechanic Archytas designed and built a mechanical bird, named “Dove,” which is considered the world’s first unmanned flying vehicle, reportedly capable of flying about 200 meters. Coincidentally, the “Wooden Carving Flying Alone” in the “Book of the Later Han: Biography of Zhang Heng” is said to be a gliding wing flying device that mimicked birds, capable of flying several miles before landing. The “Taiping Yulan” describes the “Wooden Carving Flying Alone”: “Zhang Heng once made a wooden bird, equipped with wings, with a mechanism inside, capable of flying several miles.” However, the book does not provide a detailed explanation of its flying principle or power device, making it difficult for later generations to understand how the wooden bird flew.
Kite
In addition to the wooden bird, humans have also attempted various types of flying vehicles, such as kites. Kites are a significant aviation invention. It is said that kites were invented by the general Han Xin during the Chu-Han Contention. Before the Tang Dynasty, kites were typically made from silk, satin, and bamboo, produced by the government, and were scarce and expensive, primarily used for military reconnaissance, measurement, and communication. From the Song Dynasty onwards, kites gradually entered the public domain for entertainment. We can see kites as a prototype of remote-controlled flying vehicles, with their string serving as the information channel connecting the flying platform to the ground. Moreover, after kites were introduced to the West, they became important tools for studying aerodynamics, laying the foundation for the development of modern aviation and the invention of airplanes.
Kongming Lantern
The Kongming lantern can also be viewed as a prototype of an unmanned flying vehicle. There is no precise record of when the Kongming lantern was created in ancient texts; it is said to have originated during the Five Dynasties period when the wife of General Xie Qi used it as a military signal during a campaign in Fujian. This lantern is made of bamboo and paper, shaped like a square lantern, with a base that burns resin oil. The hot air fills the lantern, allowing it to soar upwards. The Kongming lantern is essentially a small hot air balloon. Subsequently, the Kongming lantern spread to the West, and in 1782, a Japanese lantern was showcased at an exposition in Paris, which operated on a principle similar to that of the Kongming lantern. This dissemination triggered a significant leap in aviation history. A pair of French brothers, Joseph-Michel Montgolfier and Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier, after witnessing the Japanese lantern’s ascent, experimented and developed the world’s first hot air balloon in 1783. In the same year, French physicist Jacques Charles and Nicolas-Louis Robert created the first hydrogen balloon. After the balloon’s emergence, scientists used it for high-altitude exploration, industrialists for transport, and military personnel for aerial reconnaissance, prompting continuous improvements in balloon technology. Initially, high-altitude explorations using balloons required human passengers, making each exploration a risk and limiting aerial activities. It wasn’t until the late 19th century that unmanned balloon probes were widely used in low-altitude atmospheric research.
Bamboo Dragonfly
The exploration of vertical flight provided a new direction for human research on flying vehicles. In 500 BC, Chinese people, inspired by observing dragonflies in flight, created the bamboo dragonfly, providing ideas for the development of vertical flight. In 1483, Italian polymath Leonardo da Vinci designed a type of aircraft capable of vertical ascent, considered by some experts to be the ancestor of the helicopter. In 1754, Russian scientist Mikhail Lomonosov combined the rotor of the “bamboo dragonfly” with a spring mechanism to design and create a “dual-rotor unmanned aerial vehicle,” which was displayed at the Russian Academy of Sciences. He hoped this little gadget could carry some small meteorological instruments into the sky. This “dual-rotor unmanned aerial vehicle” is seen as a precursor to the helicopter, equipped with two propellers driven by clock springs, rotating in opposite directions to balance torque. However, during the demonstration, the device only achieved about 0.1N of lift and did not ascend far from the ground.It is noteworthy that the design of flying vehicles requires a high degree of integration between scientific theory and technology. Without a theoretical foundation, humanity’s dream of flight would be difficult to sustain. Therefore, humans have never given up on researching the properties and effects of air, laying the groundwork for the development of aerodynamics and aviation. The “Baopuzi: Miscellaneous Responses,” compiled by Ge Hong during the Jin Dynasty, mentioned the principle of birds flying high: “The master said that when the kite flies high, it simply stretches its wings without flapping to advance; it gradually rides the updraft…” Here, the updraft refers to rising air currents, indicating that people at that time had begun to think about the relationship between birds’ flight and airflow. However, as a Daoist text, the narrative in the “Baopuzi: Miscellaneous Responses” was not subjected to rigorous scientific scrutiny. The ancient Greeks had comparatively in-depth scientific thoughts and studies on the essence of air and its macroscopic characteristics, such as pressure, compressibility, elasticity, and fluidity. Especially after the Renaissance, the scientific revolution in Europe promoted systematic studies of air and bird flight by scientists like Galileo Galilei, Da Vinci, and Blaise Pascal. With the quantitative research of various sciences deepening in the 17th century, the rapid development of temperature measurement, liquid and gas pressure measuring instruments and technologies further pushed the development of fluid mechanics and gas dynamics, laying a solid theoretical foundation for humanity’s exploration of flight and the design of various flying vehicles.
3 War as a Major Engine for the Rapid Development of Drones
The earliest record of drones used in warfare dates back to the 1849 First Italian War of Independence, when the Austrian army besieging Venice created about 200 unmanned incendiary balloons, each carrying an 11-14 kg bomb, attempting to bomb Venice. However, the weather did not cooperate, and after the balloons were released, a sudden change in wind direction caused them to deviate from their target and fall back onto the Austrian army’s own positions. Although the initial battle with drones ended in failure, it was still a great attempt in human history.In 1887, British meteorologist Douglas Archibald installed a camera on a kite and controlled the shutter through a long cable connected to the kite line, forming a prototype of an unmanned reconnaissance aircraft, which caught the attention of a U.S. Army private named William Eddy. In the 1898 Spanish-American War, Eddy used his self-made Archibald kite camera to capture aerial views of enemy positions, further attempting to apply drones in warfare.The two world wars of the 20th century accelerated the development of drones. At the end of the 19th century, the discovery and application of radio created the possibility for remote control of flying vehicles. In 1914, during World War I, two British generals proposed to the British Military Aviation Society to develop a small aircraft that could autonomously fly to a target and drop bombs, controlled by radio. Subsequently, the UK began developing the “Aerial Target” project, led by British scientist Archibald Low. Despite several failures, the “Aerial Target” was successfully launched in 1917 at the RAF Apawam Air Force Base, becoming the world’s first powered drone to fly under radio control.The “gyroscope” is a core component of modern aircraft automatic control and inertial navigation systems. In 1909, American inventor Elmer Sperry invented the “gyroscope” and installed it on an aircraft to stabilize its flight direction and attitude by measuring the aircraft’s rotational speed. The emergence of the gyroscope caught the attention of the U.S. Navy, which hoped to develop a flying vehicle that did not require a pilot. By 1917, as World War I was nearing its end, with funding from the U.S. Navy, inventor Peter Hewitt and Sperry developed an automatic gyroscopic stabilizer that allowed an aircraft to maintain a balanced forward flight. They successfully modified the Navy’s Curtiss N-9 trainer to become the first automatically flying drone, which, lacking a recovery function, was considered an “aerial torpedo,” but was still named the “Hewitt-Sperry Automatic Airplane.” Subsequently, American inventor Charles Kettering designed a more advanced unmanned aircraft called the “Kettering Bug.” In fact, with the end of World War I, these “aerial torpedoes” were not used in combat, but they revealed their potential in warfare to the military. Today’s cruise missiles can be seen as a variant of these “aerial torpedoes.” To improve the accuracy of the “aerial torpedoes,” the military and scientists continually pushed the development of inertial navigation and radio control technologies, making them the core technologies in drone development for a long period.In the more than a decade following the end of World War I, the development speed of unmanned aircraft sharply declined. However, the outbreak of World War II reignited enthusiasm for drone development in various countries. In the 1930s, new types of drones emerged as important training tools for combat. In 1935, the UK developed the first reusable unmanned target aircraft, the “Queen Bee,” for training tasks as aerial targets. In 1939, British actor Reginald Denny and his radio airplane company designed a large remote-controlled aircraft RP-1 for training anti-aircraft gunners. In the following years, they successfully produced a series of drones and mass-produced nearly 15,000 drones for the U.S. military during World War II.At the same time, by modifying manned bombers, Germany, the U.S., and others developed unmanned bombers. These drones removed excess self-defense weapons and equipment and installed automatic control systems, allowing them to carry more bombs. In 1944, the Vengeance Weapon 1 developed by German engineer Fieseler Flugzeugbau demonstrated the significant threat drones could pose in combat. In the same year, the U.S. managed to destroy the German Vengeance Weapon 1 missile launch base by modifying a B-17 bomber and using a television-guided system for remote control, marking the first time drones were used against another drone, laying the foundation for post-war U.S. drone development.After World War II, a fierce competition in drone research and development emerged between the Eastern and Western blocs, represented by the U.S. and the Soviet Union. During this period, drones primarily conducted reconnaissance activities. The U.S. “Ryan Firebee” drone became the first jet-powered drone, mainly used for intelligence collection and monitoring of radio communications, playing significant roles in the Korean War and Vietnam War. To this day, the U.S. military still uses several improved versions of the “Firebee” drone. In 1957, the Soviet Union also developed several types of drones, including the “Gyrfalcon” supersonic drone, the “Kite” unmanned attack aircraft, and the “Swift” and “Range” unmanned reconnaissance aircraft.Entering the 1970s, other countries also began developing unmanned aerial systems. Israel’s drone development progressed exceptionally rapidly. Faced with the pressures of war, while purchasing drones from abroad, Israel quickly established its own drone design and production base, developing numerous drones like the “Pioneer,” which were later purchased and used by the U.S. during the Gulf War.With advancements in electronic technology, communication technology, materials science, and aerodynamics, starting from the 1990s, drones gradually evolved towards miniaturization, informatization, and lightweight designs. Their military applications have also become increasingly extensive, no longer limited to high-altitude reconnaissance, but capable of performing multiple tasks such as relay communication, electronic countermeasures, air defense, air superiority, and precision strikes. Drones have become a significant force influencing the course of combat, with series like the Predator and Global Hawk being widely applied.
4 Drones Entering a Golden Development Period
Entering the 21st century, with the rapid development of science and technology and the continuous advancement of military reforms, the research and application of drones worldwide have entered a new era, with drone performance becoming increasingly superior and their potential to replace manned aircraft growing stronger.
On one hand, the military application scope of drones continues to expand, with integrated reconnaissance and strike capabilities, comprehensive integration, high intelligence, nimble miniaturization, prolonged loitering, structural invisibility, collaborative use, and networked combat becoming important development directions for military drones, with even faster development speeds.
On the other hand, as military drone technology becomes increasingly stable and artificial intelligence technology leaps forward, the demand for drones in the civilian sector is experiencing explosive and leapfrog growth. Currently, drones are deeply applied in various fields such as agriculture, surveying and mapping, logistics transportation, traffic law enforcement, and film shooting, with practical value continuously improving and application scenarios showing a trend of diversified expansion. The scenes depicted in science fiction works will gradually become a reality in life.
The “General Aviation Industry Development White Paper (2022)” released by the Aviation Industry Corporation of China shows that the global civil drone market will maintain rapid growth, with the market size expected to reach 500 billion yuan by 2025. Although China’s drone technology started relatively late, it has also achieved fruitful results. From the imitation of Soviet drones, such as the Chang Kong No. 1, to the Chang Jian series of large high-altitude long-endurance drones, the Rainbow series of medium and high-altitude long-endurance drones, the Wing Long series drones, the Longmen drones, and the Xiaolong drones, China’s technological level in the drone field has significantly improved, and world-renowned civil drone manufacturing companies like DJI have emerged.Looking ahead, as the potential market of the drone industry is further released, the changes it brings will exceed most people’s imaginations. However, a series of technical and legal issues that society may face will also arise. Therefore, to ensure the positive and healthy development of the drone industry, we need to pay more attention to the relevant policies for the development of the drone industry, striving to create a good ecological environment for its development, allowing drones to continuously create better social and economic benefits for humanity. We believe that in the future, drones will become more deeply integrated into our lives, change our lives, and bring us more surprises.Authors: Deng Yuanhui, Wang Guoqiang, Wang Nan, China Association for Science and Technology Innovation Strategy Research InstituteThis article is reproduced from the WeChat public account Zhangjiang Commentary, originally published in “Zhangjiang Science and Technology Commentary” 2023 Issue 02
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