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Unmanned systems of World Wars I and II
Everett H., The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2015. 768 pp. Type: Book (978-0-262029-22-3)
Date Reviewed: Jul 25 2017

The first time I heard of H. R. Everett was in Singer’s Wired for war [1], on the subject of unmanned systems on the battlefield: “When I asked people who they most respected in the field, the name that consistently came up was H.R. (Bart) Everett.” By writing this book, Everett has done a fine service for all students of unmanned systems everywhere.

Although unmanned systems, such as unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), driverless cars, and so on, are all the rage in the popular press at the current time (mid 2010s), reading this book will help readers understand that these systems are not a recent phenomenon, and have been around for hundreds of years. Readers will also learn how these unmanned systems have been used in war for centuries.

The motivation behind the early interest in unmanned vehicles was the desire for improved accuracy of marine torpedoes, and to get rid of the trailing tethers that helped guide these torpedoes, which only allowed them to be shore based. By being shore based, the tethered torpedoes could only be used for defense (and not offense).

When electricity came on the scene in the 1800s, it was the right time to combine explosives with electricity, opening the door for the development of self-propelled torpedoes. This wasn’t straightforward, as the ideas of modern control theory and feedback were not well known in the 1800s. Everett gives readers a glimpse of how some of these problems were solved.

By the early 1900s, things started to get more interesting as radio-controlled and wireless unmanned surface and undersea vehicles could be built. As usual with invention, innovation, and engineering, these were not straightforward and many technical problems needed to be solved.

After successfully deploying wireless unmanned undersea vehicles in wars, armed forces became more ambitious, and attention focused on UAVs (also know as drones). The first demonstrated set of UAVs used for war was in 1849, during the Italian War of Independence. These were not perfect, and many decades of experimenting, innovating, inventing, and engineering had to happen before UAVs became sturdy enough to be a factor to be reckoned with. The preparations for World War II gave great impetus in terms of money, ambition, and urgency to this area, and UAVs were used to good effect by all the major forces in that war. Unmanned ground vehicles (also known as driverless cars) started to make an appearance around the 1900s, and, through different experimentation and iterations, were used to good effect in WWII.

Through these iterations, Everett chose signature models of that particular era, describing their genesis and evolution, and the inventors/engineers behind them. He chose examples far and wide--German (for example, Mistel), American (for example, the Kettering Bug), Japanese (for example, Tokushu Keninsha), British (for example, De Havilland), and so on. Readers are treated to stories of these inventors, such as Lay, Siemens, Kettering, and Tesla; how they thought of solutions; and how they convinced (or failed to convince) governments and businesses to finance them. From these descriptions, readers will learn the intrigue, financing, guile, salesmanship, technical, and sociotechnical issues that affected these models and the era. These are worthwhile lessons for engineers to learn; more than just technical issues are important when it comes to inventing and innovating.

It was George Santayana who said, “Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it” [2]. This good book puts the current enthusiasm for artificial intelligence (AI) and unmanned vehicles into context; to learn that this is not new; to learn what happened in the past so that we can stand on the shoulders of giants, and use that knowledge to build a better future for ourselves and future generations.

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Reviewer:  Tope Omitola Review #: CR145443 (1710-0653)
1) Singer, P. W. Wired for war. Penguin Press, New York, NY, 2009.
2) Santayana, G. The life of reason. Prometheus Books, Amherst, NY, 1998.
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