Full-Scale Version Of Aquila UAV Has Been Completed

Facebook has completed a full-scale version of the UAV it hopes will allow the company to provide internet access to underserved populations worldwide.

In a news release, Facebook said that there are  more than 4 billion people who are not yet online. Many of these people live within range of at least a 3G wireless signal, and our work in the last year with mobile operators across 17 countries has provided more than a billion people with access to relevant basic internet services. But 10 percent of the world’s population lives in remote locations with no internet infrastructure, and the kinds of infrastructure technologies used everywhere else — things like fiber-optic cable, microwave repeaters and cell towers — may be a challenge to deploy cost-effectively in these regions.

The goal of Connectivity Lab is to accelerate the development of a new set of technologies that can drastically change the economics of deploying internet infrastructure, the company says. Among those are aircraft, satellites and terrestrial solutions. "The intention is not to build networks and then operate them ourselves, but rather to quickly advance the state of these technologies to the point that they become viable solutions for operators and other partners to deploy," the news release states.

Facebook officials say the full-scale version of Aquila — the high-altitude, long-endurance aircraft designed by our aerospace team in the UK — is now complete and ready for flight testing. Aquila has the wingspan of a 737 but weighs hundreds of times less, thanks to its unique design and carbon-fiber frame. When deployed, it will be able to circle a remote region for up to 90 days, beaming connectivity down to people from an altitude of 60,000 to 90,000 feet.

The company also announced a laser that can deliver data at 10s of Gb per second — approximately 10x faster than the previous state-of-the-art in the industry — to a target the size of a dime from more than 10 miles away.

FMI: www.internet.org