Project Loon is in the sky for 1 million hours

The Alphabet Loon project has taken the decisive step by stealing its balloons in the sky for a million collective hours, the company said on Tuesday. This equates to 40 million kilometers traveled.

Project Loon offers mobile connectivity in isolated areas ravaged by natural disasters, the balloons being powered by a solar energy pump. They are driven by winds from 50,000 to 70,000 feet, tacking like a boat to follow the air currents.

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Project Loon headed to help Puerto Rico

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The automation software collects the wind forecast data, builds maps of the destination, and then processes the observation of each balloon so that changes can be made to track that map. It is this software that directs the movements of the ball, not the team of engineers that monitors them 24/7, said Chief Engineer Salvatore Candido.

According to Candido, the first time that he saw a balloon deciding to zigger where a human would have chosen to zag, he had to "stare for a moment at the strategy that the algorithm was trying to execute. "before realizing that he had been overtaken by the software. .

"The first balloon allowed to fully execute this technique set a record of flying time between Puerto Rico and Peru," Candido said. "I never felt simultaneously smarter and more stupid at the same time."

Hot air balloons also choose when they wander in an area to wait for the winds to change and follow the patterns in Figure 8 to maintain a constant LTE signal in an area for longer periods.