How it began
Leonardo Torres Quevedo began around 1901 to develop a system that could perform mechanical movements at a distance. His aim was to test the dirigible airships he was designing without risking human lives. He applied for patents in 1902 and 1903, and in 1903 presented the device to the French Academy of Sciences with a paper and a demonstration; patents were granted in France, Spain, Great Britain and the United States. He built his first telekino in 1904 at the newly created Aeronautical Testing Center in Madrid.
How it works
Orders were sent from a wireless telegraph transmitter to a receiver on the vehicle, which turned them into mechanical actions such as moving forward, moving backward or changing direction. A later technical study credits the 1903 design with introducing multiple states and codewords, so that one radio link could select among several different commands. Torres Quevedo grouped this work with his chess-playing machines under a new field that he called automatics.
How it spread
The first demonstration took place at the Beti-Jai fronton in Madrid, where Torres Quevedo had his laboratory, and involved steering a tricycle at up to about 32 yards. Tests followed with a small boat on the pond of the Casa de Campo in Madrid and on the Bilbao estuary in 1905. On September 6, 1906, before King Alfonso XIII and large crowds in the port of Bilbao, a boat carrying passengers was steered from the terrace of the Club Marítimo del Abra at distances of over 1.25 miles.
Who pushed back
Torres Quevedo applied to the Spanish government for financial aid to continue the work, proposing to use the system for steering naval craft. The application was denied. According to the IEEE milestone record, this refusal caused him to abandon the development and improvement of the telekino, and he turned to other projects, including his airships and his automatic machines.
What lasted
In 2007 the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers dedicated a milestone at the Torres Quevedo Museum, in the civil engineering school of the Technical University of Madrid. The citation states that with the system Torres Quevedo laid down modern wireless remote-control operation principles. The Torres Quevedo Museum presents the telekino as the first remote control, and commemorative stamps showing the device have been issued.
