Facebook has made significant progress in a project to build solar-powered drones that can deliver Internet connectivity using a mix of lasers and radio signals, CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced yesterday.
"I'm excited to announce we’ve completed construction of our first
full scale aircraft, Aquila, as part of our Internet.org effort,"
Zuckerberg wrote. "Aquila is a solar powered unmanned plane that beams
down Internet connectivity from the sky. It has the wingspan of a Boeing
737, but weighs less than a car and can stay in the air for months at a
time. We've also made a breakthrough in laser communications
technology. We've successfully tested a new laser that can transmit data
at 10 gigabits per second. That's ten times faster than any previous
system, and it can accurately connect with a point the size of a dime
from more than 10 miles away."
Obviously, that 10Gbps would be shared among multiple users, but it could connect a lot of people to the Internet.
The network will operate similarly to Google's Project Loon. While Loon uses balloons instead of drones, the aircraft in both networks distribute signals to each other to increase range.
Lasers will be used for the drones to communicate with each other,
while the drones will communicate with the ground using radio
signals. "A ground station will transmit a radio Internet signal to a
mother aircraft that will then feed other aircraft in the constellation
using laser technology," with the drones sending radio Internet signals
down to users on the ground, Facebook explained in a video that
accompanied Zuckerberg's Facebook post. Facebook's Internet.org project
aims to bring Internet service to parts of the world where people have
little or no access. Today, Facebook is working with mobile operators to
provide free access to parts of the Web on low-end phones. But that won't be enough, Zuckerberg wrote.
"This effort is important because 10 percent of the world’s
population lives in areas without existing Internet infrastructure. To
affordably connect everyone, we need to build completely new
technologies," he wrote. Facebook plans to test the systems "in the real
world" over the coming months, but Zuckerberg didn't offer an estimate
of how long it'll take to go from testing to production.
Aquila is "a very lightweight, very large wingspan aircraft capable
of flying above normal airliners, above 60,000 feet, for up to three
months at a time," Andy Cox, engineering lead for the Facebook aviation
team, said in the video.
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