Mumbai: Social networking website Facebook has demonstrated an important facet of its motivated plan to deliver Internet connectivity via drones to different parts of the world.
According to reports, the Connectivity Lab of the company has developed a gimbal that will hand from the underbelly of Facebook’s drone, which will keep the laser system connected to the ground station.
The report further pointed out that a key part of the project is an air-to-ground laser link that aims to connect the drone to Internet.
Last month, at the Mobile World Conference (MWC) 2016 in Barcelona, the company’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg spoke about achieving a dependable, high-bandwidth connection to a drone at a height of 80,000 feet.
He suggested that the soul aim of the project is to achieve a connection that is 100 times faster than other traditional connections.
Giving an example of the project, the Facebook chief explained that it is like shooting a laser pointer from California, which can manage to exactly focus on a coin in New York.
"The goal is to get 10 to 100 times faster than traditional communications systems for beaming down access," he said.
The social networking website chose a laser link instead of radio signals to attain a higher bandwidth, however, using a laser pointers makes aiming critical.
To keep the weight of the new gimbal low (3.5 kg), it was manufactured using carbon fiber and a magnesium. This will be critical, as it has to stay aloft for several months.
The report said that the new gimbal is two times lighter than the existing technology, and the company will make further improvisations to bring down the weight below 3 kgs.
The ultra-light drones will utilise Wi-Fi or LTE connectivity to provide internet to users on the ground. However, a gimbal and a stable, high-speed bandwidth connection are obligatory requisites for the success of the project.
Currently, the drones are under testing phrase and Facebook plans to begin test flights of the solar-powered Internet drone this year.
