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Saturday 13 July 2013

PROJECT LOON: GOOGLE'S PLAN FOR GLOBAL DOMINION USING BALLOONS


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Project Loon: Google's Plan For Global Dominion Using Balloons
By Yohani Kamarudin,
Tech Graffiti, 12 July 2013.

Most of us take our Internet connections for granted. After all, getting online is usually just a smartphone away. Internet connectivity is built into so many devices: tablets, iPods and even some household appliances can now go online.

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A Project Loon balloon sails above a snowy New Zealand mountain range, like a jellyfish in the sky. Photo: Google.

But with such simple and immediate access, it’s easy to forget that not everybody is as hooked up as we are. In fact, two thirds of the world’s people currently have no online access whatsoever. This is the situation Google hopes to change with Project Loon.

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A Google balloon against purple skies. Photo: Google Project Loon.

On a cold, frosty morning, close Christchurch, New Zealand, people are milling around 30 deflated translucent balloons. Attached to each balloon is a square solar cell panel about the size of a small table. Perhaps it’s not such an odd sight; after all, we’ve been launching balloons into the atmosphere for scientific reasons for over a century. However, these tech-laden floating wonders are different.

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The Project Loon team prepares the balloons for the early-morning launch. Photo: Google.

Project Loon is an ambitious venture, and considering the fact that the majority of the world’s population is currently offline, a successful outcome would be a very big deal indeed - not only for consumers, but also for Google and other online businesses as well. As far as Google is concerned, more people online lead to a greater number of Google users.

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Last-minute preparations before sunrise. Photo: Google.

The inflatable balloons - or “balloon envelopes,” as they’re also called - are made of 0.0030-inch (0.076-millimetre) thick polyethylene plastic. They have been specially designed to cope with stronger pressures than regular weather balloons, in particular the internal pressures they will encounter at their high “float” altitudes. South Dakota-based Raven Aerostar - the same company behind Austrian daredevil Felix Baumgartner’s 2012 record-setting skydiving craft - manufactured the balloons.

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Clear skies overhead. Photo: Google.

When fully inflated with helium, the “superpressure balloons” are 49 feet (15 meters) wide and 39 feet (12 meters) tall. The solar panels that power the equipment on board are, as suggested, designed to dangle below the balloons. These panels produce 100 watts of power while in full sunlight, and this is enough to power the equipment and simultaneously charge a battery for night-time usage.

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One of the all-important solar panels. Photo: Google.

Each balloon also has a 22-pound (10-kilogram) box that contains the necessary electronic equipment. The boxes house circuit boards that control the devices, and they also contain batteries and important radio antennae that can receive and broadcast signals to other balloons and to terrestrial Internet antennae below.

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Each balloon needs 12 tanks of helium. Photo: Google.

The balloons are sent about 12 miles (20 kilometres) into the air, where they are controlled by complex pre-programmed algorithms. In the stratosphere, they are propelled by the wind and move with its currents, which vary in direction and speed. The algorithms send the balloons into the correct currents to navigate them to where they need to go.

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An altitude control system is installed. Photo: Google.

Once they’re up in the air, the balloons begin beaming the Internet signals to other balloons as well as to ground antennae. These antennae then bounce the signals back up to the balloons, and so on. Each balloon can allow anyone within a 25-mile (40-kilometre) diameter area to pick up Internet signal, providing they have a receiver. Google claims the speeds will be roughly equivalent to 3G.

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It takes a minimum of six people to get each balloon off the ground. Photo: Google.

The antennae on the balloons utilize specific radio frequency technology. At present, they broadcast using 2.4 GHz and 5.8 GHz ISM bands, which are free to use. To pick up the signal, consumers have to install a special receiver. During the New Zealand trial, the first person to hook up to Project Loon’s Internet was a farmer in Leeston, a little town on the South Island. Along with 49 other New Zealanders, he agreed to participate in the test run.

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A balloon being filled with helium. Photo: Google.

The balloons normally stay aloft for up to 55 days. Each Project Loon balloon has a parachute fixed to the top of it, and when the balloon’s time is up, these parachutes can be activated for a controlled descent. If there is any kind of sudden failure, the parachutes mobilize automatically. Furthermore, according to Google, its new balloon design will be able to stay in the air for over 100 days at a time.

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The test site near Christchurch, New Zealand. Photo: Google.

If it gets off the ground, so to speak, Project Loon will bring Internet access to people living in remote areas and regions where forests, mountains or other landforms can block broadband signals. The balloons can be set up briskly, which might help in areas affected by natural disaster when other forms of communication may have been temporarily cut off.

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The balloon are monitored around the clock. Photo: Google.

Google has demonstrated that its Internet balloons are technically possible - although hard work will be required to get the project working on a worldwide scale. Nevertheless, technology is not Google’s only, or perhaps biggest, problem. To reach its goals, Google may have to fly balloons over some countries that aren’t likely to want to share airspace.

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The balloons are not completely inflated at the time they launch, as the pressure expands them when they reach
their float altitude. Photo: Google.

Furthermore, even when governments are okay with giant US-owned balloons passing overhead, they may not like the idea of such easy access to the Internet. Without the ability to regulate Project Loon, these governments may be extremely wary of giving Google free rein over their airspace.

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This shot gives you an idea of the kind of natural obstacles the project could overcome. Photo: Google.

One way Google might sidestep this problem is by controlling its balloons and limiting them to friendly skies. Even so, this more restricted approach does not seem to fit in with Google’s ambition of supplying easy Internet access on a global scale.

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A Google balloon heads for the stratosphere. Photo: Google.

Whether or not Project Loon takes off worldwide, it’s certainly an inventive idea. It will be very interesting to see what happens with these balloons in the future - and what it will mean for communications around the world.


Top image via Creative Pulse

[Post Source: Tech Graffiti. Edited. Top image added.]


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