Be it known that I, NIKOLA TESLA, a citizen of the United States, residing at New York, in the county and State of New York, have invented certain new and useful improvements in methods of and apparatus for controlling from a distance the operation of the propelling engines, the steering apparatus, and other mechanism carried by moving bodies or floating vessels, of which the following is a specification, reference being had to the drawings accompanying and forming part of the same.
The problem for which the invention forming the subject’of my present application affords a complete and practicable solution is .that of controlling from a given point the operation of the propelling-engines, the steering apparatus, and other mechanism carried by a moving object, such as a boat or any floating vessel, whereby the movements and course of such body or vessel may be directed and controlled from a distance and any device carried by the same brought into action at any desired time. So far as I am aware the only attempts to solve this problem which have heretofore met with any measure of success have been made in connection with a certain class of vessels the machinery of which was governed by electric currents conveyed to the controlling apparatus through a flexible conductor; but this system is subject to such obvious limitations as are imposed by the length, weight, and strength of the conduetor which can be practically used, by the difficulty of maintaining with safety a high speed of the vessel or changing the direction of movement of the same with the desired rapidity, by the necessity for eifecting the.
control from a point which is practically fixed,
.and by many well-understood drawbacks inseparably connected with such a system. The plan which I have perfected involves none of these objections, for I am enabled by the use of my invention to employ any means of propulsion, to impart to the moving body or vessel the highest possible speed, to control the operation of its machinery and to direct its movements from either a fixed point or from a body moving and changing its direction however rapidly, and to maintain this control over great distances without any artificial circuit carried by the moving body.
Read on this great patent from Nikola Tesla.
Method of and apparatus for controlling mechanism of moving vessels or vehicles
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