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UK Testing Wireless Broadband Via Airship

Posted by timothy on from the hope-no-one-shoots-this-idea-down dept.

fruey writes "A team from York University, UK are about to test high altitude platforms, according to this article, as a way of bringing high-speed internet services to computer users in remote areas out of reach of broadband. They plan to use solar powered engines to keep the aerial platforms in position. The Capanina site have some more information about this stratospheric broadband experiment. More technical stuff can be found at the York University website This technology could deliver broadband communications at data rates up to 120Mbit/s! Screw cable and xDSL, when will stratospheric be available near me?"

17 of 222 comments (clear)

  1. In production already? by Walkiry · · Score: 4, Informative

    I had heard of these things before (like here, but it's the first time I see anyone talking about it seriously other than in future, vague projects and predictions.

    It's like low-cost, low-tech satellite communications (less area covered, less powerful transmission units, but cheaper too), the only thing I see as a possible problem is the interference with air traffic in higher populated areas (probably the reason why they're starting with these more remote locations for implementation).

    Damn cool if you ask me.

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  2. Microlights by squiggleslash · · Score: 3, Informative
    It's probably worth mentioning that the article is focussing on microlights for this, not airships. Microlights are very small aeroplanes, resembling (and not much different to) a hang-glider with an engine.

    I assume microlights would be superior as you wouldn't need to tether them to prevent them from being blown away.

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    1. Re:Microlights by Zeinfeld · · Score: 2, Informative
      It's probably worth mentioning that the article is focussing on microlights for this, not airships. Microlights are very small aeroplanes, resembling (and not much different to) a hang-glider with an engine.

      Actually that is for testing purposes, they will fly microlights at low altitude. Presumably because it takes quite a bit of time getting a blimp up to 12 miles high and they are pretty pricey. You can do much more tweakage on a cheap microlight, send it up, test, bring it down, tweak, etc.

      The production scheme would go on airships at 12 miles out. The reason for that is that they require less power to stay in place, most of the weather takes place at much lower altitudes. Thunderstorms tend to take place at under 6Km at those latitudes.

      My meterologoist is not sure what the wind factor is up there, you are probably above the jet stream (good) but hey since you don't get much weather at those levels there is not a great deal of interest in tracking it. Possibly the wind factor is small because you are so high up and the atmosphere is much thinner.

      You would need some sort of solar array to power the networking gear. One cool aspect though is that you could have directional antanae focused on a particular area. So you would not need to share the same frequency band with everyone in the 40Km service area.

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  3. Re: Airship Broadband by praedor · · Score: 4, Informative

    It wont be the same. There will be a latency but it wont be anything close to that with satellite internet. Think about it. They are talking balloons at, what, and altitude of 10 miles or so? (I haven't yet read the article but for this I don't need to). Your DirectPC satellites are geosynchronous at worst...you're talking ~28,000 miles.


    Let's see, speed of light traversing 20+/- miles (up and back down each way) and this being factored into latency, vs speed of light traversing 56,000+/- miles (up and back each way). See a HUGE difference there?


    The latency would be/will be a nonissue.

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  4. Already RFC documented as avian carrier by Wrexs0ul · · Score: 2, Informative

    http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc1149.txt

    An interesting overview in the use of avian carriers for packet transport. Seems to follow with your point nicely though I'm concerned of packet loss due to falcon hacking.

    -Matt

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  5. Just to answer some questions by subjectstorm · · Score: 5, Informative

    Q. Weather problems and air traffic?

    A. It's 12 miles up. that's well above commercial air traffic, and i suspect (although i'm too lazy to check) most weather problems.

    Q. Latency TImes?

    A. According to the article, those will be a hell of a lot lower than satellite. Also, it seems to be boasting a very, very high rate of transfer.

    Q. How many are needed for redundancy?

    A. Well, none. If it crashes it does. Kind of like how, if your ISP gets blowed up, you ain't got no internet. This isn't yet considered stable enough for long term solutions. it's mainly just cheap braodband for areas that don't have it, until they get it - if that makes sense. I see more military applications than anything, to be perfectly honest.

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  6. Re:If I remember correctly... by l1gunman · · Score: 2, Informative

    Must... choose.... better.... search terms. I found this reference, from 1997, about something then called SkyStation:

    http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,6046 ,0 0.html

  7. Re:Lag times by Escape+Tangent · · Score: 5, Informative
    but c'mon, the British weather sucks--how long before these little "microlight" planes get knocked out of the sky by wind, attacked by birds, or grounded due to foul weather?

    Actually, theoretically never. Not to give you an RTFA, but the craft hovers at an altitude of about 12 miles -- well into the stratosphere. The stratosphere begins at about 15km (9mi) from the Earth's surface and is composed of less dense, relatively stable air. I say relatively because there is a lot of lateral mixing but nothing quite as turbulent as what we experience on the surface. The highest clouds form not far from the tropopause (cirrus, stratocumulus, et al), so weather and harsh winds would have no effect on the craft at all.

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  8. Better York Uni linky by Mixel · · Score: 3, Informative

    http://www.york.ac.uk/admin/presspr/pressreleases/ broadbandhaps.htm

  9. Permanent Fliers by Effugas · · Score: 5, Informative

    Heh, this made Slashdot. Cool. So, yeah. I know these guys.

    Basically, the airships is question are built by a company named Aerovironment (www.aerovironment.com). I've known about them for a while; one of my good friends works for the company. Really cool stuff; the basic idea is that this giant fixed wing circles around a rural area in the mid-to-upper atmosphere (where the air is thin enough to reduce drag, but thick enough to support lift) using solar power during the day and battery power at night. Then you drop some cell / wireless data relays on the bottom of the plane (UAV, to be more accurate), and poof: Regional visibility of a satellite relay, without the lag of communicating with a device being 22,500 miles away in geosynchronous orbit. That it's much cheaper to deploy the device (and possible to recover it as needed) is just gravy.

    Things haven't been trivial for Aerovironment -- they lost one of their fixed wings some time ago during a test flight in Hawaii -- but as far as I know, they're the leaders in developing UAV's that simply don't need to land.

    --Dan

  10. Re:Out of the way UK communities by CaptainBaz · · Score: 2, Informative
    I assume this means backwards places like the Fens, Channel Islands, Welsh valleys and Liverpool. It might help to teach them what a computer and electricity are for first.
    Hmm. Would this be the same Liverpool that was recently made European City of Culture?

    Agree with you on the Channel Islands though :-)
  11. Re:why airships... when satellite already is here? by miscGeek · · Score: 2, Informative

    Basically because ping time with satellites sux big time :( I know from experience. Like one poster already mentioned, it makes large downloads better but that's about it. It is better than modem though :)

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  12. Re:They fly above most aircraft, cord is the probl by Xolotl · · Score: 2, Informative

    I can't read the university or manufacturer pages at the moment (slashdotted), only the guardian article. But I would expect that only the test baloon over York will be tethered, and that will be at a fairly low altitude (York doesn't have a major airport). The stratospheric baloons will almost certainly not be tethered, because of the weight of 12 miles of cable strong enough to hold them and itself. More likely they will use engines (solar powered electric, for example, so as not to carry fuel) to hold position.

  13. Re: Airship Broadband by praedor · · Score: 2, Informative

    OK, having read the article, I was too simplistic, but not enough to change the argument. The airship operates at ~12 miles and covers a 40 mile circle. If it has a ground station directly below it (roughly speaking), then if you are on the edge of that 40 mile coverage, the max range your wireless signal would need to traverse is ~42 miles each way. So a two-way comm would traverse ~84 miles. This is still MUCH less than the ~112,000 mile range a two-way comm signal must traverse via satellite internet (28,000 mile high geostationary orbit, 56,000+ mile signal range up and down, then the return signal).


    Still - no real latency issue.

    hh
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  14. Gyromills... by F34nor · · Score: 2, Informative

    Gyromills would make a better platform and they would generate electricity at the same time.

  15. The University of York by spray_john · · Score: 2, Informative

    It's not "York University". York University is in Canada. The department in question is part of "The University of York".

    Might seem petty, but it's a bit like calling MIT the Technology Institute of Massachusetts.

  16. Several places are testing these already. by Moderation+abuser · · Score: 2, Informative

    Wind/storms/other aircraft: Flies at 10 miles, far above storms and other aircraft.

    What about the tether: 10 miles of rope, are you taking the piss?

    Weight: It's carrying capacity increases with the cube of it's size, the bigger the better.

    Power: Solar panels on top increase with the surface area. Batteries for holding position at night. Power increases with the square of the size, lifting capacity increases with the cube of the size, the bigger the better.

    Latency: 6x10^-8 seconds for the radio wave to travel.

    The Japanese have been testing them for a while now:

    http://www.jinjapan.org/trends98/honbun/ntj98030 6. html
    http://www.nal.go.jp/eng/newsletter/99winter /p09.h tm

    Less likely:
    http://www.worldskycat.com/markets/skycom .html

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