Google Tests Balloons To Beam Internet Service
About 30 of the
superpressure balloons are being launched from New Zealand from where they will
drift around the world on a controlled path. Attached equipment will offer
3G-like speeds to 50 testers in the country. Access will be intermittent, but
in time the firm hopes to build a big enough fleet to offer reliable links to
people living in remote areas. It says that balloons could one day be diverted
to disaster-hit areas to aid rescue efforts in situations where ground
communication equipment has been damaged. But one expert warns that trying to
simultaneously navigate thousands of the high-altitude balloons around the
globe's wind patterns will prove a difficult task to get right.
Google calls the
effort Project Loon and acknowledges it is "highly experimental" at
this stage. Each balloon is 15m (49.2ft) in diameter - the length of a small
plane - and filled with lifting gases. Electronic equipment hangs underneath
including radio antennas, a flight computer, an altitude control system and
solar panels to power the gear. Google aims to fly the balloons in the
stratosphere, 20km (12 miles) or more above the ground, which is about double
the altitude used by commercial aircraft and above controlled airspace. Google
says each should stay aloft for about 100 days and provide connectivity to an
area stretching 40km in diameter below as they travel in a west-to-east
direction. The firm says the concept could offer a way to connect the
two-thirds of the world's population which does not have affordable net
connections.
Project Loon antenna
Special antennas have been fitted to the homes of test volunteers in New
Zealand. "The idea behind Loon was that it might be easier to tie the
world together by using what it has in common - the skies - than the process of
laying fibre and trying to put up cellphone infrastructure." Previous
proposals to provide connectivity from the upper atmosphere suggested floating
high-altitude platforms that stayed in one place and were tethered to the
ground. Google rejected this idea as it involved fighting the winds, meaning
the equipment would have to be large, expensive and limited to a fixed area. But
using free-floating balloons introduces another problem: how to ensure they are
where they are supposed to be. "We didn't want them to go just wherever
the winds took them, we wanted them to go where the internet is needed on the
ground," said Mr DeVaul."You have to cause them to move up or down
just a little bit through the stratosphere to catch the appropriate wind -
which is how we steer them. "So we have to choreograph a whole ballet of
this fleet, and that requires some impressive computing science and a whole lot
of computing power." Project Loon balloon Electronics powered by solar panels
hang from beneath the balloons.
The balloons will
communicate with Google's "mission control" where computer servers
will carry out the calculations needed to keep them on track, monitored by a
small number of engineers. The software makes adjustments to each balloon's
altitude to take advantage of forecast wind conditions, and nudges the balloons
up or down to find a more favourable stream when the predictions are not
accurate. Since the equipment is dependent on solar power, the algorithms must
also ensure there is enough charge left in the batteries to allow them to carry
on working as they travel through the night. At the end of their working life,
the software initiates a controlled descent so that the kit can be recovered by
teams of locally-based employees. "They have flashing lights and radar
reflectors, so as far as aviation hazards go these Loon balloons present very
low risk to aircraft.
"And they also
pose low risk to anybody on the ground because even in the unlikely scenario
that one suddenly and unexpectedly fails, they have parachutes that are
automatically deployed." Project Loon graphic Google says the balloons
should not pose a threat to commercial aircraft. A group of about 50 testers
based in Christchurch and Canterbury, New Zealand, have had special antennas
fitted to their properties to receive the balloons' signals. Google now plans
to partner with other organisations to fit similar equipment to other buildings
in countries on a similar latitude, so that people in Argentina, Chile, South
Africa and Australia can also take part in the trial.
The search firm is
not the first to pursue such an idea. An Arizona-based firm, Space Data,
already provides blimp-based radio repeaters to the US Air Force to allow it to
extend communications coverage. Project Loon balloon Project Loon balloons are
made of plastic just 3mm (0.1in) thick. Another Orlando-based firm, World
Surveillance Group, sells similar equipment to the US Army and other government
agencies. However, they typically remain airborne for up to a few days at a
time rather than for months, and are not as wide-ranging. One expert cautioned
that Google might find it harder to control its fleet than it hoped. "The
practicalities of controlling lighter-than-air machines are well known because
of the vagaries of the weather," said Prof Alan Woodward, visiting
professor at the University of Surrey's department of computing.
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