Google, Facebook reportedly develop rival secret drone plans

PanARMENIAN.Net - Google and Facebook have significantly expanded their rival plans to develop unmanned aircraft that can provide broadband internet access from high above the Earth, the Guardian reports.

Both Facebook and Alphabet, Google’s parent company, have quietly registered new drone designs with the US Federal Aviation Administration.

Meanwhile, Alphabet is also planning secret high-altitude airborne operations at Spaceport America in New Mexico, which has been largely unused since Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo craft crashed in December 2014, and an American subsidiary of Facebook has taken delivery of a prototype solar-powered drone.

Much of the world’s attention is focused on small drones, such as Alphabet’s Project Wing or Amazon’s Prime Air delivery drones, but Google and Facebook are also working on much larger drones that can operate far above passenger jets.

Flying for weeks or months at a time, such drones could theoretically provide city-sized areas with high-speed internet access, particularly in remote or undeveloped parts of the world.

“We’re working on ways to use drones and satellites to connect the billion people who don’t live in range of existing wireless networks,” said Facebook’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, in July. Last year, Facebook set up an initiative with Nokia, Samsung and others called Internet.org to provide some online access to the two-thirds of the world lacking a reliable connection.

Both companies would benefit from an expanded internet network which would help them reach new users, and in turn develop new advertising markets.

Over the summer, Facebook revealed a huge solar-powered drone called Aquila with a wingspan of 42 metres capable of operating at up to 90,000ft, sharing internet access with radios and lasers. Aquila was developed by Facebook in the UK.

The drone is made from carbon fibre that is about three times stronger than steel and lighter than aluminium. Yael Maguire, head of Facebook’s Connectivity Lab, said in July that the Aquila would weigh around 400kg, allowing it remain aloft for 90 days at a time.

Google also recently registered two new drones with the FAA, codenamed M2 and B3. While there has been speculation that they might be part of Alphabet’s own plans to offer internet access from on high, FAA documents seen by the Guardian show that the drones are tiny. The M2 weighs 2.25kg and the B3 just 900g, about twice as much as a soccer ball.

Alphabet has applied for an exemption, called “333” after a section of the FAA regulations, for its Project Wing delivery drones, but that is yet to be granted and in any case would only clear operation to a maximum height of 400ft. Google has also been testing its delivery drones in the US under a Certificate of Waiver or Authorization (COA) with Nasa, which permitted flights intended to help Nasa develop an automated air traffic control system for low-flying drones. This would not apply to drones flying far above other manned and unmanned aircraft.