Facebook announces drone "Aquila" that enables flying in the sunlight and enabling Internet connection in remote areas

"Facebook plans to conduct a test flight of a huge Wi-Fi drone of a passenger size in the summer of 2015"ReportedHowever, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerburg said, "Flying Wi-Fi station" as a sunlight-driven drone "AquilaWe announced the completion of the local time on July 30, 2015 local time.

New Milestones in Connectivity Lab's Aircraft and Laser Programs
http://newsroom.fb.com/news/2015/07/new-milestones-in-connectivity-labs-aircraft-and-laser-programs/

The aircraft appearing in the image below is "Aquila". It has a very thin wing and it has two propellers under the wing.


Looking at the test video showing the takeoff by 3D modeling, you can see that Aquila is shaped like a boomerang.


The size of Aquila is about the same as the span of the Boeing 737 aircraft, but because the frame is made of carbon fiber, the weight is lighter than cars and it is possible to continue flying for three months with a single flight.


I cut a sheet of carbon fiber, making a wing of Aquila.




Connect wing parts to each other.


Aquila will fly at an altitude between 60,000 and 90,000 feet (about 18 - 17 km) while communicating with base stations on the ground, and will provide the Internet environment to areas where radio waves from ground base stations do not reach.



Place where propeller is attached to fuselage.


Carbon fiber is also used for the propeller in order to reduce the weight of the aircraft.


Propeller is in trial operation.


Looking at the place where people are lined up around Aquila, you can see how Aquila is a huge fuselage.


In addition, Mr. Zuckerberg also announced that it has developed a new laser communication technology realizing a transmission speed of about 10 times that of the conventional one, which enables 10 GB data transmission per second. I succeeded in communicating with a point 10 miles away (about 16 km) at this stage.


After field tests, we plan to utilize laser communication technology for communication between Aquila.


"Mankind has built the Internet environment around the world after the establishment of Internet.org, but still about 10% of the world lives in a place without Internet connection environment. Everything on Earth We need to build a completely new technology to deliver the Internet environment to people, "Facebook said on Friday that it will carry out the flight test of Aquila in the months ahead.