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Unmanned Aerial Telecom Relays 79

Posted by michael from the it's-a-bird-it's-a-plane dept.
Brussel writes "SkyTower in collaboration with the Japan Ministry of Telecommunications (CRL/TAO) and NASA has successfully completed a series of commercial telecommunications tests -- the world's first from more than 60,000 feet in the stratosphere. The tests, which began three weeks ago, were conducted from Pathfinder-Plus, an unmanned solar-electric aircraft developed by AeroVironment." There's another press release here.
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Unmanned Aerial Telecom Relays More

Unmanned Aerial Telecom Relays

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  • ...will involve planes falling from the sky
  • for any major projects like this..

    granted it's cheap but if it crashed and burned it would affect service quite harshly and i'm no sure many coustomers will want to 'wait for the next flight' to get their buisness done

    • i'm no sure many coustomers will want to 'wait for the next flight' to get their buisness done
      I think that would be quicker than waiting for a repair crew when a car hits one of the landline boxes the towers are hooked up to.
    • They can overlap coverage from multiple planes to provide redundancy. They can even move planes remotely to fill gaps in coverage.
      • Not so quickly there. They are operating under geostationary rules which means home customers may have directed antennaes. Can't really move these things around. Its also difficult to have redundancy unless you've got a second "waiting in the wings". Not sure why the back-up couldn't be a pretty ordinary airplane, If the first comes down - just bolt the transponder to the CEO's jet and take off.

        AIK
    • If you read the SkyTower website you will see that the prefered configuration is two planes doing tight circles in a fixed point in the sky. These planes can share the same frequency and provide redundancy. So if one plane fails, you will at most loose half the bandwith.

      But if the planes crash into eachother...

      Check out this Real animation on their site:
      http://www.skytowerglobal.com/anim/sktanim.rm [skytowerglobal.com]

    • Kind of like a fibre run getting hacked by a back hoe? Only, that happens frequently and is out of the telecom company's control. This critter would be 60,000 feet in the air and out of reach. The only thing that could bring it down would be the operator's incompetence. That's a darn sight better than today's situation with fibre where anyone's incompetence could make for a bad day.

      Besides, what could bring it down? Its 60,000 feet in the air! Above damned near everything in the sky except maybe an SR-71 and the ISS. It would have to be a mechanical malfunction, or oops we forgot to fill the tank.

      As for affecting the customers, I don't know of any backbone, which this would be essentially, that isn't fault tolerant. I suspect they will fly redundant drones or have overlapping service areas.

    • granted it's cheap but if it crashed and burned it would affect service quite harshly and i'm no sure many coustomers will want to 'wait for the next flight' to get their buisness done

      This crazy idea of using geostationary satellites for critical services will never catch on. If it crashed and burned it would affect service quite harshly, and I'm not sure many customers will want to 'wait for the next launch' to get their business done.

      Let's stick to transatlantic cables. Oh, wait, these are thousants of feet under the sea, in the middle of nowhere. If they break, you going to have to get a ship out there, and even then they'll be difficult to repair. Never catch on...

  • Just don't (Score:4, Funny)

    by af_robot ( 553885 ) on Tuesday July 23, 2002 @07:00AM (#3936267)
    call it Skynet :)
    We know what then may happens...
  • It seems to me that the airplane they are showing there could be weak. If you look at the second picture you can see it bowing in the middle. Looking on the page with the othe aircraft, I do really like the idea of the solar powered airplanes, bout time.
    • It is..

      If you have seen the video of it flying (not sure of a link maybe someone can post it? it does kinda flop around in the air currents. Supposedly it helps to keep it stable/use less power. I would imagine it would not take much to bring one down tho.

    • It seems to me that the airplane they are showing there could be weak. If you look at the second picture you can see it bowing in the middle.

      Ever notice how trees bend without breaking? Or how buildings gently sway in the wind? The easiest way to ensure something will break is to make it stiff and brittle. Structures with a bit of leeway are more resilient in the end.

      The much vaunted titanium is actually quite bendable, which is one of the reasons its so strong.
  • I wonder what the effect of a bad storm would have on the usability of something like this... wouldn't there be too much interference?
    • They're going to have to demonstrate that long-term weather at 60,000 feet is docile enough to enable these planes to stay up. Some U2 images [nasa.gov] were taken above a cloud that got up to 18 km. That doesn't leave an awful lot of clearance between the plane and the clouds from this particular storm. Conceivably, there are higher clouds associated with bigger storms. Even if you're above the cloud turbulence, you still have to cope with:
      At 22:14 CST on July 6, 1989 they recorded a twin flash [nasa.gov] originating in a storm top cloud and discharging into the stratosphere [nasa.gov].
      Lightning not a problem? How about Sprites? [nasa.gov]. Then of course, there's the issue of clear air turbulence. [casa.gov.au]

      Don't get me wrong, it'll be wonderful if the company can pull this off. It just looks like there are an awful lot of unanswered questions as to what it'll be like up at that elevation for extended periods. If I were starting up an isp based on the technology, I'd make it clear to my customers that there may be black out periods when I bring the planes down to avoid losing them to a major storm. The tradeoff is when the planes are up, they'll get terrific throughput. 98% uptime may be good enough for most people. For the 99.999 crowd, they could use the service to supplement whatever they're doing and fall back to slower circuits during a storm.

  • Is it just me, or is the idea of unmanned machines communicating miles above the Earth kind of scary? With advances in AI and orbital weapons systems (thanks, Dubya), we could soon be living in a world monitored and "protected" by a group superintelligent, armed robots that orbit the Earth. Not a happy thought.
    Wow... unmanned machines communicating miles above the Earth??? Kinda like satellites! In all actuality, the premise of unmanned suborbital communications planes is a great idea... allows for a more localized signal... that way I can check /. anywhere in town with my laptop! "This should be adequate sustenance for the Dr. Who marathon"

  • 24 Hour Service (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The real challenge will be to get this thing to work on batteries or a fuel cell all night.
    This story doesn't sound like a giant leap, in that they already got these things to fly during the day.

  • Weather effects (Score:4, Interesting)

    by SgtChaireBourne ( 457691 ) on Tuesday July 23, 2002 @07:32AM (#3936369) Homepage
    Since these are supposed to be up there 24/7, it does look like they'd churn the atmosphere a bit. What these don't do in magnitude they make up for in duration. What kind of effect would this have on weather, especially at that altitude?

    Could these platforms be mounted with catalysts to remove chemical pollutants?

    • That's like saying all the boats we have in the ocean are going to change ocean current patterns. Do you have any idea how big the "sky" is?
      • Way to criticize without thinking, pal. I think it was a couple of months ago we saw an article here on slashdot about how airline jets are probably having a significant effect on weather patterns.

        And why did you feel a need for quotes around "sky." Are you trying to be sarcastic or something? It didn't work.

        • Sky was in quotes, because the atmosphere has no clear boundaries, it just sort of fades away when you get our far enough. It wasn't meant to be sarcasm.
        • Way to think without criticizing, pal. It's not the motion of the airline jets through the air that's causing problems. It's the large amount of fuel that they burn and their contrails.

          Solar powered aircraft are not going to have any effect on the atmosphere. The person who made the boat/ocean analogy was correct.
      • Yes, that is like saying the boats in the ocean are messing with the ocean. So your point about boats is spot on. Just ask any one in the fishing industry what boat wakes do to spawning areas. The effects of engine noise on sea mammals is still being studied.

        Even from a non-economic, non-biological aspect, otherwise silent submarines can be tracked by how they disturb the different layers of water. These planes will be cruising for long periods like modern subs do.

        However, back to the planes. Yes, even tiny jet contrails [wired.com] in the big sky change the weather as much as 3 degrees C. That can be translated directly into millions of dollars per year increased / decreased revenue from crops, if not from other industries.

    • 60000 feet is well above where the conventional weather ends. These planes are also rather slow, so I would guesstimate that the impact would be unmeasurable.

      The second part is an interesting question. The ozone layer is within reach of these crafts. Maybe we can figure out some chemical that would react with CFCs to form something solid but harmless that would fall out of the sky?
    • In all likelyhood, you aren't going to see anything substantial in the way of weather modification from these. Remember that the atmosphere is BIG, and comparatively the effects of any individual or small group of things is very very small. You'd need enormous numbers of these things to even show up against the background effects of commercial aviation, and that effect is very small compared with the aggregate effects of industry smokestacks and cooling towers.

      If you're referring to "churning" as in turbulence, the effect of even enormous numbers of these things will absolutely nothing compared with the mountain wave turbulence produced by just one mountain range.

      And, yes, I am a meteorologist.
    • That the parent comment was awarded a score of four beggars belief.

      Good grief, one doesn't even need a back of the envelope sketch to realise that none of the "points" raised merit a minute's thought.

      Truly stunning...
  • Not enough lateral thinking.

    http://www.airship.com/prod/stratsat_sub_frames. ht m
    • Just like the difference between "focus on problem" and "focus on solution"...?

      When NASA began the launch of astronauts into space, they found out that the pens wouldn't work at zero gravity. In order to solve this problem, they hired Andersen Consulting (Accenture today). It took them one decade and 12 million dollars. They developed a pen that worked at zero gravity, upside down, under water, in practically any surface including crystal and in a temperature ranging from below freezing to over 300 degrees C.

      The Russians used a pencil.
  • read about this back in the 1983... in a sci-fi book called 'Single Combat' by Dean Ing...

    The man even included a basic sketch outline of a plan... called it a 'boucher relay'

  • Not only are they working on building a large, long-endurance airplane, they're also working on a small, short-endurance spy plane. The basic idea is you take a briefcase to where you're interested in looking at something, open the case, set up a small antennae and launch a little hand-held plane to go snoop around. There's a paper on how they built the plane near the bottom of this page [aerovironment.com].
  • These machines are environmentally friendly, inexpensive and makes the telecommunications infrastructure more resilient.

    The plane doesn't even use stored power - it uses solar power to fly and power the telecom equipment. I am amazed, but also slightly skeptical that there will be enough power available to both fly for 6 months and power the payload, and store the surplus energy overnight. That especially applies to the extreme north and south where daylight is scarce and at an extremely low angle during the winter.

    If this turns out to work, it's a major breakthrough. It will provide both urban areas with scalable telecom soluitions, and provide the less densely populated areas with modern telecom facilities. This applies especially to the developing parts of the world where the current infrastructure is abysmal.

    All I worry about is if someone sees this as a threat, and manages to shut down the project in some ingenious way.
    • These machines are environmentally friendly, inexpensive and makes the telecommunications infrastructure more resilient.

      Something that's desperately needed [yahoo.com] right now. The whole US internet infrastructure is only running now by the blessing of the court system, a court system whose wisdom is hit-or-miss at best. Not that I'm hoping WorldCom survives, I just want it to survive long enough for a bunch of smaller competitors to buy up the pieces at bargain bin rates.

      Any technology that provides alternatives for getting on or running the internet gets a big cheer from me.
  • Is it to be sent to a harem?

  • There are a series of amateur radio satellites in orbit sponsored by members of The Radio Amateur Satellite Corporation [amsat.org] and other organizations worldwide. They are free to use worldwide by anyone holding an amateur radio license. Most of these satellites are in low earth orbit, which means that they may make several passes a day. It does not take much to get started. You can communicate with other radio amateurs through these satellites with nothing more than a handheld antenna pointed at the sky and a handheld radio clipped to your belt. I use this [arrowantennas.com] antenna.

    Yes, I know that I can whip out my cellphone and talk to anyone with much less effort. But I am a geek and this is much cooler (and fun!)

    If you are in the U.S. check out the American Radio Relay League's web site [arrl.org] for more information on getting licensed. If you are outside the U.S., check the above web site for information on getting licensed in your country. It's easy!

  • .... some idiot is going to combine this with an advertising banner. The skys, thirty years from now, will be filled with advertsising. Even at 30,000 - it would be economical to tow a *huge* fabric banner thats visible from the ground....

    ugh.
    • as our need of bandwidth grow -- more and more of these will circulate the sky. not only will you be bombarded by the rediculous amount of ads -- something that has always been taken for granted: sunshine -- will now be a luxury.
    • i hope you're joking... do you know how absolutely huge a banner would have to be to be visible (much less legible) from 30,000 feet (5+ miles)?

      remember, this is a very low-power aircraft, too. this design is basically the aeronautical equivalent of a solar-powered bicycle. long endurance w/ no frills, & that includes any sort of excess power.

  • Go Helios! (Score:2, Informative)

    by citizenP ( 595303 )
    A while back I was able to go to Dryden Flight Research Center and see the Helios and talk to one of the head engineers about the project. The plane itself has a huge wingspan, larger than that of a 747. I don't recall the exact figure, but I'm sure you can find it on NASA's website. As several people have commented, it is better structurally for the wing to be very flexible. This allows the plane to absorb shock encountered in flight, with an instantaneous shock resistance of > 30g's. At that time, the idea was to operate the plane at an altitude of 120,000 feet, which would put it above most weather. There is some risk involved with takeoff and landing, but this is true for any aircraft. Besides, a Helios flight may last up to 60 days, which gives leeway to plan takeoffs and landings around weather conditions. The real advantage of the Helios over a satellite is maintenance. If the electronics in a satellite fail, there are few options for fixing or recovering the satellite. At a cost of over $80 million a pop, that's an expensive risk. With a Helios, which may cost around $3 million, servicing the payload is much easier. The plane itself has such a low glide ratio that in the original tests, they shut off the engines at night and let the plane glide. It only lost about 15,000 feet over an 8 hour period. In the morning the engines would come back on and the plane would regain altitude in a couple of hours. I am not sure if they still do that, but it's a great way to conserve electricity for use with a payload. Anyway, should the engines fail there is plenty of time to land the aircraft. I'm excited to see these successful test flights, as there are many benifits the plane could provide. The obvious application is cellular phone coverage, but at a much lower cost. This means extending cellular coverage to areas of the world that are underserviced by current telecommunications satellites (i.e., a large portion of the African continent). It is also possible to transmit power via a microwave radio signal, thus these could also be used to provide electrical power to very remote areas. The Helios won't, and shouldn't, replace current infrastructure but it may be a great tool for meeting the challenges of technological development in underdeveloped parts of the world.
    • Since they advertise geostationarity - I think they must maintain altitude all night. In fact - the cycle life of the battery system is likely to be the functional limit on time aloft.
  • Have you read about gyromils?
    www.bbc.co.uk/science/tw/items/010328_w indmillsint hesky.shtml

    Team up the two. We can subsidize it as "homeland security." We put a ring of these around major metro areas, the steel cables should give the civies a flase sense of secuity while pumping out power and bandwidth.
  • On one of the pages [aerovironment.com] linked to by the linked to article, I found this:

    On August 13, 2001 on its second high altitude flight, Helios flew to 96,863 feet, shattering the world altitude record for both propeller and jet-powered aircraft (the SR-71 spy plane was the previous record holder, having flown to 85,068 feet in July 1976).
    I had no idea the SR-71 had been (publicly) dethroned! And by a propeller driven plane, at that.

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