The post Women you didn’t know who have revolutionized the drone industry appeared first on Simply Drones.
]]>1. Marilyn Monroe
In 1942, young Norma Jean Dougherty married Jim Dougherty, a factory worker in Van Nuys, California. The following year, her husband enlisted in the Merchant Marine and, in 1944, he was sent to the Pacific Theater of World War II. Then, at just 18 years old, Norma Jean moved with her parents to Van Nuys and began working at the Radioplane Munitions Factory.
These photos of Monroe with her brown curls were taken by David Conover, (a U.S. photographer from the Army) when her name was still Norma and have been circulating the internet for years.
Although her main job at the factory was to spray aircraft with fire retardants, here she is seen assembling the OQ-2 radio plane (sometimes called the RP-5A, TDD-l, or “Dennymite” by its designer Reginald Denny), which was the world’s first mass-produced unmanned aerial vehicle.
This drone was a small radio-controlled aircraft powered by a two-cylinder, two-stroke piston engine. It featured two counter-rotating propellers and was launched by “a catapult.” If he survived target practice, he was retrieved by a parachute.
Later versions sold to the Army included landing gear, although the Navy did not include it. These Radioplane OQ-2s measured almost 2.74 meters long with a wingspan of just over 3.65 meters. Each one weighed 47 kilos.
It is not uncommon for Monroe to have worked making flying machines for war back then, as during WWII many men went to fight, and then factories and industries were taken over by women. There is even a famous poster that says “We Can Do It! / We can!” and the image has a woman in a factory uniform showing her strength.
2. Hedy Lamarr
As we are telling you, at that time it was common for women to start taking male jobs like Marilyn did, who worked assembling these drones, but long before that, Hedy Lamarr would be born, a woman who would have a lot to do with the development of technology. of drones.
Hedy Lamarr was an Austrian-American actress and one of the most iconic movie stars of her time, during World War II she dedicated herself to doing something very important: she invented a frequency hopping communications system for the Allies, which established the foundations of the GPS, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi technology we use today.
When Hedy patented her technology and handed the patent over to the United States Navy, they sadly didn’t take it seriously. They said the invention was too cumbersome and not a useful military technology. What they meant was that it was unlikely that an actress and musical artist would have invented a technology that could serve them. It was state-of-the-art technology and some claim it could have shortened the war by a year or more and was the size of a watch face. Well, what does this have to do with drones?
We found evidence that Hedy’s patent was assigned to military contractors in the 1950s and that the technology was used in military drones and sonobuoys. She created the first system that allowed the development of a surveillance drone and contributed to science and technology’s great advances in the drone industry and evolution. These advances were used in Military satellites and from there they migrated to the GPS, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi systems that we use today.
These two stories show us many things in common, two women, actresses, beautiful and intelligent who always had ties with drone technology, assembly, and development of these. Unfortunately, we also see that they were not recognized for their knowledge, because at that time they were only recognized for their work amid entertainment and cinema.
3. Mónica Abarca
Currently, this has changed, many women continue to revolutionize and create an impact in the drone and technology industry, one of them Mónica Abarca who leads qAIRa, a startup that offers sensors and automated drones to mining companies and municipal governments for the survey of parameters environmental. At just 26 years old, the mechatronic engineer develops drones and sensors for air quality monitoring –measuring gases such as carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, and dust–, which in recent months has expanded the range of possibilities to include survey services for other environmental parameters.
Little by little the recognition and participation of women in the drone development industry is being obtained, Mónica, through an interview given to the source Infobae, tells us about some of the limitations of women in the area:
"In my career, we were 20% women. I think there is still a certain fear, even in the family sphere, that women study engineering, particularly the hardest ones, such as mechanics or mechatronics. It is a chip that must go changing. From school, girls should be taught that they can choose the career they want. This is achieved by giving visibility to women who have been successful and who are achieving interesting things".
At Simply Drones, we are proud to tell and extol the different stories in which women are protagonists in the development of the solar industry and drones. Keep learning more stories through our blog, by the way. Do you already know the story of Tesla and Drones? It will surely remind you of Hedy Lamarr’s, find it on our blog.
SOURCES, AUTHORS AND REFERENCES:
– Esteva, R. 2013. Marilyn Monroe armed drones for war.
– INFOBAE. 2019. The young woman who develops drones to improve air quality.
– López, E. 2021. What does Marilyn Monroe and aviation have to do with it?
– Stilwell, B. 2020. Marilyn Monroe’s first job was building drones for the military.
Silvia Monroy
Author
The post Women you didn’t know who have revolutionized the drone industry appeared first on Simply Drones.
]]>The post Tesla and the origin of drones appeared first on Simply Drones.
]]>Nikola Tesla was one of the greatest inventors and scientists in the history of mankind, even though many of his findings fell into oblivion or it was others who profited from his ideas. Few people know the history of Tesla and the origin of drones, since one of the great inventions of Tesla was, neither more nor less than the invention of one of the first drones.
It was the year 1898, still in the 19th century, and Tesla was going to a great exhibition at the mythical Madison Square Garden in New York. There he prepared a great show, since, at the time, popular support was needed to get good funding.
In a pond, the inventor and showman remotely controlled a small boat with three antennas directed by a radio signal. Then, he asked the public to chant orders to the invention, which moved perfectly underwater, although it was Tesla himself who operated remote control, following people’s orders. This was the first application of radio waves in history, which means that Tesla’s patent No. 613,809 was the cradle of modern robotics in drones. And in that body of water floated an enormous possible military advance.
That same year, he obtained a patent for this primitive water drone, which he tried to sell to the United States Navy without much success. This type of device did not arouse the interest of the military until the arrival of World War I.
A few years later, in 1903, the great Spanish engineer Leonardo Torres presented his version of a remote-controlled drone, the Telekino, much more elaborate than the Tesla model and that allowed to fully handle a small boat, however, due to the lack of financing this invention could not be carried out. Finally, and many years later, in late 1946, the US Air Force approved a program to develop three types of drones for use as training targets. Of the three, the Q-2 model, was the most important, becoming the father of a class of “target” aircraft built by the Ryan Aeronautical Company.
The development of drones collapsed for decades due to the low need for them because of the success and developments in the field of missiles. In the mid-1950s the United States Army developed a type of long-range missile with a precision guidance system, somewhat more like a small aircraft.
In May 1964, the United States began considering sending drones to replace its U-2s on spy missions over Cuba. The “fireflies” operated by the United States were later used for surveillance in the so-called “sensitive areas”, the main theaters of the Cold War: among them Cuba, North Korea, and the People’s Republic of China. For many years and until today, drones have been used to facilitate military operations and government investigations. As we can see, drones were created to gain a military advantage against the enemy, the technology that has been developed for this has evolved over the years.
Step by step, unmanned aircraft were acquiring new capabilities that allow their use outside the military sphere. Currently, the applications of drones in the civil field are spreading and changing the traditional models of work in sectors such as agriculture, aerial thermography, surveying, inspection, and maintenance of industrial infrastructure, as well as tasks in the audiovisual sector and others very diverse.
Interesting, right? At Simply Drones, we are enthusiasts of solar energy, innovation, and the history of drones. We invite you to know our portfolio of services and continue to inform you on our blog about technology, drones, and more.
SOURCES, AUTHORS AND REFERENCES:
-
INTERNATIONAL CIVIL AVIATION ORGANIZATION (2011): “Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS)”. Circular 328, AN / 190.
-
NEWCOME, L. R. (2004): «Unmanned Aviation. A Brief History of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles ». American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics. Reston, Virginia (USA)
-
VALAVANIS, K. P. and VACHTSEVANOS, G. J. Editors’ (2015): «Handbook of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles». Springer Science + business Media. Dordrecht (Holland).
-
AUSTIN, R. (2010): «Unmanned Aircraft Systems. UAVS Design, Development and Deployment ». John Wiley & Sons Ltd. Chichester (UK).
- REJADO, C. THE ORIGIN AND HISTORY OF THE DRONES. HEMAV. E.T.S.I. Aeronautics. Polytechnic University of Madrid
Silvia Monroy
Author
The post Tesla and the origin of drones appeared first on Simply Drones.
]]>