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This ‘pictorial’ Chapter presents a historical perspective on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) starting from Ancient Greece to the beginning of the 21st Century. The UAV history, from a very early dream to today’s reality is illustrated through a series of figures with detailed legends that are arranged mostly chronologically; they reveal the unmanned vehicle evolution and designs over a period of almost 2,500 years. The Chapter, even though it is non-technical, offers an accurate glimpse of history and helps the reader understand the tremendous level of growth in the unmanned systems area. Almost all figures have been taken from archives and web sites available on-line. The list is by no means complete, but it is very informative. The Chapter layout and contents are similar to Chapter 1 of reference [10].
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© 2007 Springer. Printed in the Netherlands
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Valavanis, K.P., Kontitsis, M. (2007). A Historical Perspective on Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. In: Valavanis, K.P. (eds) Advances in Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. Intelligent Systems, Control and Automation: Science and Engineering, vol 33. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-6114-1_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-6114-1_2
Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht
Print ISBN: 978-1-4020-6113-4
Online ISBN: 978-1-4020-6114-1
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