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An Unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is a type of aircraft which has no onboard crew or passengers. UAVs include both autonomous drones and remotely piloted vehicles (RPVs). A UAV is capable of controlled, sustained level flight and is powered by a jet, reciprocating, or electric engine. In the 21st century, technology reached a point of sophistication that the UAV is now being given a greatly expanded role in many areas of aviation.

A UAV differs from a cruise missile in that a UAV is intended to be recovered after its mission, while a cruise missile impacts its target. A military UAV may carry and fire munitions on board, while a cruise missile is a munition.

The earliest recorded use of an unmanned aerial vehicle for warfighting occurred on August 22, 1849, when the Austrians attacked the Italian city of Venice with unmanned balloons loaded with explosives. At least some of the balloons were launched from the Austrian ship Vulcano. Although some of the balloons worked and successfully managed to bomb The Republic, others were caught in a change of wind and blown back over Austrian lines. The Austrians had been developing this system for months. The Presse, of Vienna, Austria, stated: "Venice is to be bombarded by balloons, as the lagunes prevent the approaching of artillery. Five balloons, each twenty-three feet in diameter, are in construction at Treviso. In a favorable wind the balloons will be launched and directed as near to Venice as possible, and on their being brought to vertical positions over the town, they will be fired by electro magnetism by means of a long isolated copper wire with a large galvanic battery placed on a building. The bomb falls perpendicularly, and explodes on reaching the ground." Balloons do not generally meet today's definition of a UAV. Once winged aircraft had been invented, the effort to fly them unmanned for military purposes was not far behind.

The first pilotless aircraft were built during and shortly after World War I. Leading the way, using A. M. Low's radio control techniques, was the Ruston Proctor Aerial Target of 1916. If developed further it was to have been used against Zeppelins. Soon after, on September 12, the Hewitt-Sperry Automatic Airplane, otherwise known as the "flying bomb" made its first flight, demonstrating the concept of an unmanned aircraft. They were intended for use as "aerial torpedoes" an early version of today's cruise missiles. Control was achieved using gyroscopes developed by Elmer Sperry of the Sperry Gyroscope Company.

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