Facebook drones to bring Internet connectivity to more areas
Posted on: 04/Aug/2015 10:40:16 AM
Continuing its mission to ensure Internet connectivity to rural areas, Facebook is testing solar powered drones that will bring together more people than ever. This drone has been named Aquila. It is a carbon fibre craft that is V shaped. It has two propellers with a wingspan of about 42 metres - similar to the wing of a Boeing 737 aircraft. The full scale model has not been tested yet, but Facebook is testing smaller wingspan drones in the UK.
The drone will be taken up to the stratosphere by a helium balloon and then it will be cut off. It will then fly in 5 km circles. Sources say the altitude will be between 60000 and 90000 metres above sea level. This far higher than the altitude in which airplanes fly - there aren`t clouds here, and no weather. Aquila will carry radio equipment which will provide broadband connectivity to the ground below. Engineers expect the connectivity from one drone to cover a 50 mile radius back on earth.
Says a Facebook official, Roughly 10 per cent of the world�s population, mostly in rural areas, can�t get Internet access with existing delivery technologies. Facebook�s drones will change that... Our mission in the company is to connect everybody in the world... (Our) engineers recently set a new record for the speed at which data can be transferred using lasers, reporting speeds of tens of gigabits per second, which (is) about 10 times better than previous best efforts.... After (we get) Aquila off the ground, it has to work up to flying it in the stratosphere for about three months at a time for it to be a practical way to deliver Internet connectivity... The longest flight so far is only about two weeks... (We) may license or sell its drone technology to companies or governments, but such details remain undecided... We�re not going to operate this stuff ourselves.
