平流层通信新思路——谷歌气球计划

New Idea for Stratospheric Communications——Google Loon

平流层通信具有低延迟、信道衰落小、造价低廉、机动灵活等特点,在军事应用和应急通信领域都有重要的战略价值,也曾经引起各国的重视,并成为研究热点。然而平流层通信平台的稳定性对各国研究者而言一直是一个挑战,谷歌公司从鸟群飞行中得到启发,开启了Google Loon项目,其目的是为全球偏远地区2/3人口提供速度较快、价格可承受的互联网接入服务,同时为自然灾害发生地区提供通信服务。文中分析了谷歌气球的技术细节,谷歌气球初次试验的情况,以及谷歌气球面临的挑战。谷歌气球计划为平流层通信提供了又一新思路。

Stratospheric communication enjoys important strategic value in military applications and emergency communications with low delay,small channel fading,low cost and flexible features,thus attracts much attention from various states and becomes a hot research topic.However,the stability of stratospheric communications platform is always a challenge to worldwide researchers.Google Company draws inspiration from the way that birds flock together and starts up the Google Loon project.Google aims at providing fast,affordable internet access services for two-thirds of the world＇s population in remote areas,and meanwhile offers communication services to the natural disaster-stricken area.This paper analyzes the technical details of Google Loon from various aspects,the first balloon test,as well as the challenges faced by Google Loon.Google Loon project provides another new idea for stratospheric communication.