Google is preparing to conquer a new dimension: the stratosphere.
The Internet giant is releasing 30 high-tech balloons in a trial of technology
designed to bring the Internet to places where people are not yet connected.
The balloons are being sent up
into the sky from New Zealand's South Island this month in the first trial of a
pioneering system dubbed Project Loon.
According to Google,
"Project Loon is a network of balloons traveling on the edge of space,
designed to connect people in rural and remote areas, help fill coverage gaps,
and bring people back online after disasters."
Google estimates that two-thirds
of the global population is without fast, affordable Internet access. So while
it sounds like something from the realms of science fiction, if successful, the
project could make a difference to many people around the world.
Google Balloon
What are Google Balloons?
Google is experimenting with helium-filled balloons that beam the internet from the sky. Developed over a period of 18 months, these jellyfish-shaped balloons are part of Project Loon that Google has commissioned them in New Zealand.
These are the helium-filled balloons that are made from a thin polyethylene film and are 15 meters (49 feet) in diameter when fully inflated.
How does these Google Balloons work?
The balloons would sail on the stratosphere's winds in a continuous circuit around the globe. The balloons come equipped with flight computers, and Google would control the balloons' altitude from the ground, keeping them moving along a desired channel by using different winds at different heights.
Once released, the balloons will
float in the stratosphere above 60,000 feet (18,300 meters), twice as high as
airplanes and the weather, Google says. Their altitude will be controlled from
"Loon Mission Control" using special software to allow them to pick
up layers of wind traveling in the right direction and form a balloon network.
If all goes to plan, about 60
people who've had a special antenna fixed on their homes for the trial should
be able to connect to the balloon network. The signal will bounce from balloon
to balloon, then to the Internet back on Earth. Hundreds of people will be able
to connect to one balloon at a time.
Project Loon Grid
People behind Project Loon:
Rich Devaul, Chief Technical Architect for Project Loon, explained that the system will “communicate with specialized internet antennas on the ground. [An] antenna points up at the sky and talks to [a] balloon and each one of these balloons talks to their neighboring balloons and then back down to the ground station which is connected to the local internet provider.”
Devaul also stated that the team has “designed our radios and antennas specifically to receive signals from Project Loon only… If we didn't filter out the other signals the technology just wouldn't work.”
By early 2012, the experiment had gained status of a genuine Google X project. It also had a new leader. DeVaul, preferring to work on tech rather than management, helped hire a project leader, Mike Cassidy, a top search engineer who had started multiple companies before joining Google. Cassidy built up the team with network engineers, mapping specialists, energy experts, and ex-military operatives who were stunningly good at recovering downed payloads in wilderness terrain. (When balloons would go down, the payload would separate and glide earthward by parachute. Civilians stumbling on the scary-looking package would see a non-branded message reading HARMLESS SCIENCE EXPERIMENT, and a promise of a reward for those who called a number to return it.) When it became clear that Google needed many more balloons that its small team was able to hand-craft, Cassidy began a fruitful collaboration with Raven Aerostar, the company that makes weather balloons for NASA and created the monster bubble that took Felix Baumgartner into near space for his record leap earthward.
Advantages:
Google says the balloons have the potential to provide internet access far more cheaply, quickly and widely than traditional underground fiber cables.
Managing the flight of just one balloon in our complex and ever-changing atmosphere is a huge challenge. Trying to harmonize an entire fleet of thousands of them will be mind-boggling.
One issue that Google has had to deal with is how to keep the balloons floating roughly in the same area to maintain an Internet connection on Earth. Cassidy said the team members believe they've figured it out. "All we had to do was figure out how to control their path through the sky," he noted. "We've now found a way to do that, using just wind and solar power: We can move the balloons up or down to catch the winds we want them to travel in. That solution then led us to a new problem: How to manage a fleet of balloons sailing around the world so that each balloon is in the area you want it right when you need it. We're solving this with some complex algorithms and lots of computing power."
Google's vision:
Google's vision is to build a ring of balloons, flying around the globe on stratospheric winds about 12.4 miles high, that provide Internet access to remote and undeserved areas. The balloons communicate with specially designed antennas on the ground, which in turn, connect to ground stations that connect to the local Internet service provider, the company said.
But if all works according to the company’s grand vision, hundreds, even thousands, of high-pressure balloons circling the earth could provide Internet to a significant chunk of the world’s 5 billion unconnected souls, enriching their lives with vital news, precious educational materials, lifesaving health information and many more.
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