These slides use concepts from my (Jeff Funk) course entitled analyzing hi-tech opportunities to analyze the increasing economic feasibility of high-altitude solar glider for Internet access. The falling cost of electronics and solar cells are making these glider economically feasible when compared to traditional satellites. They have lower manufacturing and launch costs than do traditional satellites and lower installation costs than do fiber optic cable. This enables them to provide cheaper Internet access in developing countries where Internet access is still limited to cities.
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Transcript
HAPS
High-Altitude “Pseudo-Satellite”
- Solar Cell Glider -
Picture taken from http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21614095-cheap-alternative-satellites-starting-take-west-wind-blows
Chan Chee Huei (Caleb) - A0110243
Jeremy Loke - A0098545
Chin Chee Fei - A0031131
Huang Junjie - A0133835
High-Altitude Pseudo-Satellite (HAPS)
• High-Altitude Platform (HAP)
– Balloons, Airships and UAS
– Located in Stratosphere
• Wireless communication alternative
• Combines benefits of terrestrial and satellite communication systems
• Characteristics– Law enforcement surveillance– Unmanned (8 men crew) and operated at BS– Up to 600m altitude (up to 4.6km)– 200m coverage (up to 400m)– 24hr operations– Typical cost USD 0.5mil depending on system
equipped– SGD 30 mil ops saving per year! (USD 23.5 mil)
• Provide alternative coverage withhigh speed broad-band access even inremote areas (e.g. Brazil, India) andenhance quality of wirelesscommunications in denselyinfrastructure cities fromcommunication barriers.
• Provide supplementary coverageduring times of reduced GPSavailability
• Provide better position accuracy
Application (II) – Real Time Imagery
• Providing real time imaging during natural disaster and provide emergency respond when lives are at stake.
• Real time imagery could also allow a more accurate weather forecast such as forecasting the arrival of hurricane.
• Provide backup communications relay if terrestrial communications assets such as cell towers, microwave relays and satellite downlinks are damaged.
Application (III) – Security• Border/Marine time- Provide intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance in coastal or
ocean regions against suspicious activity and identify threats to enableeffective countermeasures.
- Identify transport of illegal goods in massive coastline- Dedicated communications support to other UAVs Global positioning
systems (GPS) services
• Military- Provide surveillance against terrorists’ threats to the country- On offensive side, enemy intelligence, precision targeting, counter-IED,
etc.- Provide intra-unit communications and locations infoE.g. The U.S. Army’s combat operations in Afghanistan and Iraq in 2001 and 2003, respectively,showed that the forces lacked adequate intra-unit communications, particularly at lowerechelons, and that the use of satellite communications resources offered a future solution. Thepromise of satellites was borne out by the success of Blue Force Tracker, a communicationssystem used to track the locations of units and vehicles connected to low-orbitcommunications satellites. Lewis J. [2005]
Application (IV) – Others• Support other technology and applications- Large scale autonomous vehicles- Effective air/land shipping tracker- Research
• Tele and Broadband Communications- Better Internet and mobile network quality and coverage (4G, 5G,
LTE etc)- Wireless broadband for commercial flights- Personalized coverage in a designated area- The NASA Pathfinder/Plus can provide 1000x the fixed broadband
communication capacity using the same frequency bands- Satellite television programs
• Complementary tool to Satellites- Inter-working scenario to provide high quality Multimedia
Broadcast and Multicast Service (MBMS) on an overlappedterrestrial-HAP-satellite coverage
• The opportunity is measured by the count of disasters, not including man-made disaster (e.g. border conflicts, terrorist)
• The motivation from the loss of lives that could be salvage with better communication and tracking devices
Economic Opportunity (II)
• Mobile internet, IoT, Cloud storage, autonomous vehicle - GPS
• Suggest that communication speed, availability and quality are vital to meet the various forecasted demand
Economic Opportunity (III)
• Take O & G for example. Due to the constraints of laying lines across ocean to remote oil rig, O&G entities depends heavily on satellites. Cheaper pseudo-satellite that can be deployed easily is definitely a bargain to help oil rigs at remote areas gain access to communication and improve safety respond network.
Components of Solar cell glider
• Indefinite availability and power source– Solar cell
– Weather proof
• Electric drive train and communications – Electric power storage
– Integrated Chips
• Construction material– Lightweight
– Stronghttp://www.freesunpower.com/overview.php
Solar panel
Charger controller
Battery
Power inverter
• The best modern productionsilicon cell efficiency is 24% atthe cell level as reported bySunPower in March of, 2012
• The rest of the sun’s energyare lost as heat and otherenergies
• Crystalline silicon dominatesthe solar market in 2013
• Thin film is cheaper but lesseffective. To achieve the sametotal power output ascrystalline silicon, it requires35% more space
Reduced cell cost suggests the upcoming era of large capacity cells
•As thin digital devices continue to lead the trend, cylindrical and polymer cells may bring the once promising large-capacity cells back into the market. It is expected that starting from 2013, the average size of cell modules will be significantly reduced;•Due to its large capacity, polymer cell price has dropped rapidly. Small-capacity cells are therefore being less applied in the market, and polymer cells have acquired a larger market share than cylindrical cells.•Large-capacity cell price continues to fall due to increased production•As for Large-capacity cells, most of the production line has amortized, so the average price is very competitive; it is expected that the use of large-capacity cells (such as 2.8Ah and 3.0Ah) will continue to increase and accelerate the price decline of large-capacity cells.
Source: “Opportunities for Next Generation Aircraft Enabled by Revolutionary Materials”,Charlie Harris, the director of the Research and Technology Directorate at NASA's Langley Research Center, slide 16
Material - Composite
Conclusion
• HAPS or Solar cell gliders offer a wide range of entrepreneur applications
• There are several ‘push’ factors to deploy solar cell gliders based on the potential applications
• The rate of improvement of the components discussed could increase the market share of solar cell gliders in future at lower cost
• It is not a disruptive but merely a complimentary technology to existing communication network
References
• A. Mohammed and Z. Yang, “Wireless Communications from High Altitude Platforms: Applications, Deployment and Development” in Communication Technology (ICCT), 12th IEEE International Conference, 2010, p1476 – 1479.
• McKinsey Global Institute, “Disruptive technologies: Advances that will transform life, business, and the global economy”, May 2013, p12.
• Lewis J., Geoffrey S. S., Isaac R.P. III, “High-altitude airships for the future force army”, RAND, 2005, p1.
• Thanh T. N. D., “Improving performance of wireless communication systems using adaptive space-time scheme”, International Symposium on Electrical & Electronics Engineering, Oct 2007
• Tom Mendina, Johannes J. Britz, Information Ethics in the Electronic Age, Current Issues in Africa and the World , 2004, p 26.
• http://www.gizmag.com/zephyr-uav-civil-test-flight/34010/, assessed on 21 Oct 2014
• http://www.economist.com/news/science-and-technology/21614095-cheap-alternative-satellites-starting-take-west-wind-blows, assessed on 21 Oct 2014