Nikola Tesla Patents
ODLUGOUDUDLILILI UJ CILJUJU ject, such as a boat, or any floating vessel, whereby the movements and course of such body or vessel may be directed and controlled fram a distance, and any device carried by the same, brought into action at any desired time. So 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 conductor 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 effecting 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 connections between the vessel and the apparatus governing its movements, and without such restrictions as these must necessarily impose. In a broad sense, then, my invention differs from -2255
