What is the earliest date in which drones could have been built? No ear
From Archimedes Plutonium@21:1/5 to All on Fri Mar 3 18:25:57 2023
I am marveling at how much drones are being used in the Ukraine war.
And asking, when in human history could the first drone have been built??
The first airplanes are with the Wright brothers of 1903.
The Integrated Circuit board IC was invented in 1959-1960 by Robert Noyce at Fairchild Semiconductor.
Looking at the history of drones-- many were used in Vietnam war.
Apparently these three factors caused the explosion of drone use:
1) Miniaturization of electronics and parts
2) Smart technology
3) Improved electrical power
The lithium battery history goes back to Whittingham 1974 in UK.
Energy density were achieved on lithium batteries in 1990s by using hard carbon and graphite. (Wikipedia)
So I am guessing the earliest that Drones could be built was the 1990s due to controls, energy pack, requiring miniaturization and lightweight.
It seems a engineering Rule that the first inventions are "heavy clunkers" and given time, the advanced engineering is lightweight with much power.
What is the earliest date in which drones could have been built? No earlier than computer chips IC???