Project Loon: Almost four years ago, Google launched a project that aims to bring internet coverage to remote areas with specially designed balloons. Since then there has been steady progress with numerous studies, but today the company, is announced an important breakthrough that will greatly facilitate the development of the service.
To this day, balloons are flown around the world in ringa, and moved up or down in the stratosphere depending on the winds. When a balloon drifts away from an area that requires connectivity, another will immediately follow to replace it.
The team behind Project Loon says it has figured out a way to send small groups of balloons to areas that can stay in place for months to a year. Below is one video which shows how such a thing can be done.
Astro Teller, who leads the Alphabet trial, also known as X, has explained that this will allow Project Loon to do incredible things.
"Now we are running an experiment trying to provide services to specific parts of the world with 10 or 20 or 30 balloons, not 200 or 300 or 400."
To achieve this, Google engineers spent many hours improving the systems control altitude and navigation, but also to implement a new AI software that adjusts how the balloons fly, rather than using predetermined navigation paths.
The team reported that this translates into a 100x reduction in the total number of balloons that would need to be used to provide access to thenetwork. Thus there will be a drastic reduction in costs, but also the possibility to start the services of Project Loon will be realized much faster than expected.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHCKL-fCmk8
