[Studies in Computational Intelligence 481] Artur Babiarz, Robert Bieda, Karol Jędrasiak, Aleksander Nawrat (auth.), Aleksander Nawrat, Zygmunt Kuś (eds.) - Vision Based Systemsfor UAV Applications (2013, Sprin

294 T. Czapla and J. Wrona
current battlefield. It is very difficult to discuss with the military budgets impact
on these area because in this case the main issue is soldier protection.
Asymmetric character of contemporary warfare causes imbalance in the means
of power, resources and costs resulted from this asymmetry. In consequence,
armed forces need to develop complex and expensive operational capabilities and
their application methods in order to fight against relatively simple and inexpensive
techniques used by irregular enemy troops or terrorists.
The efforts focused on unmanned military vehicles had been taken up far before
the IEDs threat occurred, what is described in the paper (Saska, Krzystała,
Mężyk., 2011). There are several projects on military unmanned vehicles also
performed in Poland (Mężyk, Nawrat, 2011).
2 History and Classification
The first success in the field of unmanned vehicles technology was achieved by
Nicolae Tesla, Serbian inventor living in USA. In 1898 Tesla has built two remotely
controlled boats. Six feet long vehicles were built of steel and equipped
with electromechanical radio receiver with actuators connected to the steering
system. Boats were called “teleautomatons” and had electric propulsion system
(Fig. 1a). Despite the fact that inventor tried to offer the vehicle to the military
authorities in USA and Great Britain, they shown no interest in using new technology.
Over 30 years later German navy was using radio controlled boats developed
from cable-controlled boats FL-7 from 1917 (Tesla, 1898).
Tesla predicted further development of unmanned vehicles and described it in his
diary: „Telautomata will be ultimately produced, capable of acting as if possessed
of their own intelligence, and their advent will create a revolution” (Tesla,
1898). Modern unmanned vehicles are becoming to resemble Tesla's vision.
Fig. 1. The first two unmanned vehicles: a) Teleautomaton – Tesla’s unmanned boat, b)
Wikesham’s land torpedo (sources: Tesla, 1921, Wikersham 1922)
In 1928 Elmer E. Wikersham (1922) has patented unmanned ground vehicle
that was intended to provide explosives to the target (Fig. 1b). Vehicle remained a
prototype but it should be mentioned that idea of the landmine was an answer for
position warfare and “trench to trench” tactics.