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.
Until today, the balloons were flying around the world in rings, and they moved up or down the stratosphere depending on the winds. When a balloon is dragged away from an area that requires connectivity, another will immediately follow to replace it.
The team behind Project Loon says they've figured out a way Missionof small groups of balloons in areas that can remain in place for months to a year. Below is a video that shows how this 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 height and navigation, but also to implement a new software AI that adjusts how the balloons fly, instead of using pre-defined navigation paths.
The team reported that this translates into a 100x reduction in the total number of balloons that would need to be used for disposal accesson the internet. 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
