Google Buys Drone Maker Titan Aerospace

garymortimer (1882326) writes "Google has acquired drone maker Titan Aerospace. Titan is a New Mexico-based company that makes high-flying solar powered drones. There's no word on the price Google paid, but Facebook had been in talks to acquire the company earlier this year for a reported $60 million. Presumably, Google paid more than that to keep it away from Facebook. 'Google had just recently demonstrated how its Loon prototype balloons could traverse the globe in a remarkably short period of time, but the use of drones could conceivably make a network of Internet-providing automotons even better at globe-trotting, with a higher degree of control and ability to react to changing conditions. Some kind of hybrid system might also be in the pipeline that marries both technologies.'"

Comments

Live Google Maps?

[SlickUSA]

If they send up enough sats, could they make google maps realtime?

Re:Live Google Maps?

[tsqr]

If they send up enough sats, could they make google maps realtime?

Realtime sounds like you're asking for the video edition of Google Earth. Let's assume you meant "updated frequently" instead. We'll also assume you're not interested in continuously updated images of empty ocean.

Land surface area of our planet is about 57.3 million square miles. An aircraft at 65,000 ft has an observable "footprint" of a circle 600 miles in diameter; that's about 283,000 square miles. So at first blush, it looks like you'd need 203 or so aircraft to cover the land area. But you'd need substantially more aircraft, because equal-sized circles don't pack without a lot of overlap (for example, with a hexagonal pattern, 14 circles of unit diameter are required to cover a rectangle of 8 square units); aside from that, you probably aren't going to get usable imagery at the extreme edges of the footprint. There's also the inefficiency involved in covering small, isolated islands. You can get by with fewer aircraft if you can live with a lower refresh rate and can have each aircraft orbit with a wide radius rather than try to stay in one location. On the other hand, you're going to need a lot of spare aircraft, because even though they're solar powered, they depend on things like motors and batteries and servo actuators to stay aloft and operate through the night time and stay on station, and those things don't last forever.

Then there's the issue of single-event upsets and single-event latchups, which can be a major problem at the altitudes we're talking about. It's also very cold at 65,000 ft, so a lot of stuff that would be OK at the surface is going to have to be heated to stay operational at altitude, which means more batteries and a bigger solar array. Then, although their routine operation would be autonomous, there will have to be some level of human monitoring, because you'd sort of like to avoid having airplanes full of lithium batteries falling into urban areas.

So yeah, it could be done in theory. In practice, it might be too expensive.

Re:Live Google Maps?

[Marxist Hacker 42]

We'll also assume you're not interested in continuously updated images of empty ocean.
 
I think the families of Malaysian Flight 370 might have something to say about that.

Re:Live Google Maps?

[tsqr]

I think the families of Malaysian Flight 370 might have something to say about that.

I'm sure they would, but the original question was about Google Earth, not ISR.

If you want continuous coverage of all the world's oceans (you would, right; who knows where the next aircraft would disappear to?), then the coverage area balloons from 57.3 million square miles, to about 197 square miles. So, roughly quadruple the number of aircraft required to about 1200. Unit cost would be somewhere between $5 million and $10 million; at the lower number figure $6 billion or so just for the aircraft. Add in ground support equipment, control equipment and people to run the system, and you're starting to talk about some real money. In the history of commercial aviation, a total of 4 commercial passenger airliners have been lost (by which I mean, they disappeared and no trace was ever found), not counting MH370. If MH370 is never found, it will be the first to be lost since 1962.

Re:Why in the FUCK

[hawguy]

would either Google or especially Facebook be buying drone companies? These companies obviously have WAY too much money and are WAY overvalued. I suppose it is smart that rather than wait for the bubble to burst and the share price to crash, wiping out billions in value, they're trying to get stuff that is worth something while they still can. Still, this is actually kind of unsettling to me and makes me wonder if we may cruising obliviously towards the next text meltdown, sooner rather than later?

It's alluded to in the summary, and spelled out in TFA - both companies have shown interest in providing internet access in underserved areas through aerial platforms:

Both Ascenta and Titan Aerospace are in the business of high altitude drones, which cruise nearer the edge of the earth’s atmosphere and provide tech that could be integral to blanketing the globe in cheap, omnipresent Internet connectivity to help bring remote areas online. According to the WSJ, Google will be using Titan Aerospace’s expertise and tech to contribute to Project Loon, the balloon-based remote Internet delivery project it’s currently working on along these lines.

...

The main goal, however, is likely spreading the potential reach of Google and its network, which is Facebook’s aim, too. When you saturate your market and you’re among the world’s most wealthy companies, you don’t go into maintenance mode; you build new ones.

Re:Hopefully $2 billion

[Overzeetop]

Mark...is that you?

Re:Why in the FUCK

[wagnerrp]

It's cheaper to send a couple drones up to tirelessly update the aerial photography in Google Earth than manned aircraft.

Re:Why in the FUCK

[BenSchuarmer]

Mark Zuckerberg wanted to replace Facebook's "What are you doing?" prompt with "How much will you pay us to not tell everyone what you're really doing?"

Re:Nice for rural areas..

[ShanghaiBill]

How exactly would you expect them to build a wireless network without encroaching on everyone else's spectrum?

The ground transmitter and drone will have a line-of-sight connection. So they could use microwave or even visible light. There is plenty of available spectrum for this type of application. Both the ground transmitter and drone could use a narrow directional signal.

Re:Why in the FUCK

[Capt.DrumkenBum]

It would be great if people could request an update on a specific location. Possible way to monetize that would be that a person could pay to climb the queue.