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 announced a major breakthrough that will significantly facilitate the development of the service.
Until now, balloons have flown around the world in rings, moving up or down in the stratosphere depending on the winds. When one balloon drifts away from an area that requires connectivity, another will quickly 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 a video showing how it could be done.
Astro Teller, who leads Alphabet's experimental division known as X, explained that this will allow Project Loon to do incredible things.
"We're now running an experiment trying to provide service to specific parts of the world with 10 or 20 or 30 balloons, rather than 200 or 300 or 400."
To achieve this, Google engineers spent countless hours improving the altitude control and navigation systems, as well as implementing new AI software that adjusts how the balloons fly, rather than using pre-determined navigation paths.
The team said this translates to a 100x reduction in the total number of balloons that would need to be used to provide internet access, drastically reducing costs and enabling Project Loon to launch services much sooner than expected.
