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Telekino — Leonardo Torres Quevedo

1903 AD · Transmission: Silenced
TechnologyInventionHispanic

Leonardo Torres Quevedo conceives the system in 1901 and carries out his first functional experiments in 1902 with a tricycle steered remotely via wireless telegraphy, before patenting in 1903 the Telekino, a system that transmits commands over a distance via Hertzian waves to control mechanical movements without cables or an operator at the controlled point. He publicly demonstrates it in 1906 in the port of Bilbao, remotely controlling a boat before King Alfonso XIII. It is the first documented wireless remote-control system applied to a real vehicle, predating Tesla's remote control of a model (1898, without application to a real vehicle under operational conditions) and any equivalent commercial system. Torres Quevedo did not commercialize the invention; his company did not obtain sufficient funding from the Spanish state. The technical principle of the Telekino is the direct basis of all modern remote control systems.

InstitutionRoyal Academy of Exact, Physical and Natural Sciences, Madrid
Historical regionSpain
Primary sourceTorres Quevedo, L. — Telekino patent, 1903. Presentation at the Académie des Sciences in Paris (1903). Technical report available at the Royal Academy of Sciences
Secondary sourceRoca Rosell, A. — "Torres Quevedo y la automática" (Arbor, CSIC); Google Arts & Culture — Telekino entry; IEEE Engineering and Technology History Wiki — "Milestones: Early Developments in Remote-Control, 1901"
Original languageSpanish / French (Paris presentation)
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