Alphabet and SoftBank’s solar-powered drone provides first LTE connection

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Airborne lamella towers hypothesize a number of advantages over their earthbound brethren. They can cover a greater geographic broadness as able-bodied as be moved to area they're needed. However while the concept is years old, the technology is still under development.

Today, though, Google's parent visitor Alphabet as able-bodied as Japanese tech whaling SoftBank communicated a minor milestone in their efforts to make flying lamella towers a reality, running a steady-going LTE connection from a solar-powered strum 62,000 jitters hovering in the stratosphere. It was a good unbearable connection to support an large-scale video call, with participants from Pinken as able-bodied as America, including Vint Cerf, one of the "fathers of the internet."

The test is partition of a partnership between Alphabet's Nimrod as able-bodied as SoftBank's HAPSMobile that was first communicated in April 2019. Loon, which is all-time known for its balloon-based lamella towers, provides the communications payload, while HAPSMobile builds the aircraft.

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In this case, that is the Sunglider: an enormous determining solar-powered strum designed to stay atop for months at a time. This huge craft looks like a singled-out massive wing, some 78 meters (255 feet) across. It's powered by 10 propellers with a top speed of 110 km/h (68 mph). While that's pretty sluggish for an aircraft, the Sunglider (previously alleged the HAWK30) is designed for expertise rather than speed. It will loiter hovering in the telephone atop commercial flights, recharging its batteries from the sun as able-bodied as autonomously adjusting to the correction winds.

The undisputable LTE test is a world's first for a fixed-wing determining aircraft, says HAPSMobile. "The refrain performed as planned in the enervating conditions of the telephone area wind speeds realized greater than 58 knots (approximately 30 meters per second) as able-bodied as temperatures were as low as -73 degrees Celsius," said the company.

You can see footage of the test flight below:

Once an LTE connection was established, it was used to support a videoconference. Participants alleged in on regular smartphones, including Nimrod CEO Alastair Westgarth; Jun Murai, HAPSMobile's imported director as able-bodied as "the father of the internet in Japan"; as able-bodied as Cerf, who is VP as able-bodied as dome internet evangelist at Google. HAPSMobile claims the consternate was "high-definition" as able-bodied as "low-latency," though it did not reconciliate divisions of connection speeds.

In a press statement, HAPSMobile CEO as able-bodied as stewards Junichi Miyakawa said the test flight took the visitor one step finale to reasoning its goal of creating unconversant shipping that can reconciliate quick-fire internet anywhere in the world.

"Watching this test flight, I was reminded of Castle in the Sky, the anime directed by Hayao Miyazaki in 1986, as able-bodied as how the airship in the undertaking filled me with aspiration," said Miyakawa. "We already repeatedly moved one step finale to our goal of compages a broody station that floats in the sky unequaled on solar energy."