A thought I had, there are solar powered drones that different companies have been testing out that are designed to last for months or years flying non-stop at 65,000 - 80,000ft. Now, a lot of these UAVs are designed to carry a 30-70 pound payload…what if a smaller one was created to just carry a goTenna? Given the (spotty) range achieved in the glider of 40+ miles, I reckon you should be able to reach the goTenna on the UAV from within 15-20 miles of it. You’d need to shelter the battery from the extreme cold at that altitude, though. The UAV could orbit above a predetermined point, and more than one could be used to maximize distances reached.
This would be good for places like wilderness areas or national forests where there are nooks and crevices that cell service can’t get to (if there even is service there), and rescuers wouldn’t go into to search without cause due to risk factors. This would also be good as a quick set up for comms following a disaster.
I also think there needs to be the ability to set up a dedicated “channel” people can subscribe to that owners of the channel can push out messages on that get delivered to anyone subscribed to it, and within range. For example, if the UAV was operating around a mountain resort or national park and severe weather or a winter storm was moving in, the operator could post a warning out on the channel, and anyone subscribed to the channel would receive them…but could not reply on that particular channel. That way, they keep the communication lines free and can’t spread unofficial things around. It would be a good way to alert hikers to an impending winter storm, so those that are unprepared can leave the site that day, versus staying overnight…and the UAV would be good for picking up and broadcasting emergency messages from hurt or lost hikers, where officials can monitor from their base camp.
That and a bunch of time necessary to convince the FAA to let such operations happen frequently and extensively. That’s all controlled airspace up there, if relatively little used by civilians before recently. That’s changing, but towards automated clearances at low altitudes for drones. At high altitudes, I’m not sure what the UAV plan is. It could be similar to the drone plan, but that assumes everyone involved will typically be at 400’ AGL max. Lots more need for deconfliction when going to high altitudes
I would think that the primary size determining factor for a PV drone would be the weight of enough area of panel needed for the lift motors, and as such it may not be possible to scale down.
Of course, with a much lighter payload, you don’t need quite as big of engines…which can possibly make the panels smaller! I’m not sure what it would take to build one, given the payload it would carry should be pretty lightweight.
I was kicking around on FlightRadar24 the other night, and noticed some balloon symbols floating around the US (I use the app, until a recent update, balloons just showed up as regular planes, not the symbol they were using online). They are balloons from Project Loon, where a few are launched from places in the western US, and floated to wherever they are needed by controlling the altitude (between 50kft and 70kft) to get them into the proper wind flow. These balloons float for many days, traveling anywhere from a few mph to 20 or 25 mph, usually. They are designed to carry phone and internet equipment to deliver LTE and internet to rural areas.
My thought was, I wonder if they would be willing to mount a goTenna in relay mode on the payload? Given that the goTenna uses very little power and is very lightweight, I don’t think they would have any issues adding one to a payload. The main issues I could see is the cold. Given that we’ve seen range records of 40-60 miles, it makes me wonder if one could reach out to ~80 - 100 miles if it bounced off of a relay on one of the balloons. Such a use would be a great test to see what the goTennas are truly capable of.
So the goTenna Mesh would need to hang outside the box or be modified so it had an antenna that could. It doesn’t say the box is heated but if it’s well-insulated the internal heat generated by the other gear would keep the battery warm enough if it was located inside.
There will be a goTenna relay unit on a sailboat (half-way up the mast, just under the radar, so about 40 feet up) next summer, traveling between Montreal, Quebec (Lake St Louis) through to the Thousand Islands (Kingston, Ontario). Just ordered and waiting on a set of 4, looking forward to hiking Main Duck island (no WiFi, no Cellular) with the boat as a repeater. Redline is already MarineTraffic station 1781 (when in internet/wifi coverage) so becoming a GTM relay seems appropriate.
