Google’s Skybender: A 5G Internet Drone

Published on: March 4th, 2016

Solar power is rapidly becoming one of the largest sources of renewable energy and is also being utilized by tech tycoon, Google Inc. Rather than stringing and laying thousands of miles of fiber optic cable, Google envisions solar-powered drones delivering lightning-speed internet from the clouds above.

Google’s SkyBender is the tech giant’s experiment with solar-powered drones, happening at Spaceport America. Two years ago Google purchased a drone startup, Titan Aerospace, and shortly after formed a specialized sector, Google Titan. Skybender’s system is being evaluated with Centaur aircraft and Google Titan solar-powered drones.

What is Google’s SkyBender?

Millimeter wave radio transmissions will be the primary basis of delivering 5G wireless internet through Project SkyBender drones. Millimeter waves are able to produce speeds up to 40 times faster than 4G LTE systems, transmitting gigabits of data every second.

If implemented correctly, thousands of self-flying aircraft would have the ability to distribute 5G internet access across the globe. Theoretically, airline passengers would have the ability to download movies, music, and more in less than a second.

The current 4G cellphone spectrum is overpopulated and is gradually slowing down, but millimeter wave technology will allow entry to a new unexplored spectrum, thus faster speeds. A potential downfall to millimeter wave technology is that transmissions have a shorter range compared to 4G mobile phone signals. In order to successfully broadcast millimeter waves from Google’s SkyBender, an elaborate and expensive process is necessary to analyze focused transmissions from a phased array of transmitters.

Google anticipates running further tests on millimeter wave technology in New Mexico until July 2016 in hopes to bring 5G internet services in rural and remote locations across the world via drones.