Paper on Google's Project "Loon for all"

1. A DIMINUTIVE NOTE ON PROJECT LOON
V.Prasanna Kumar
Diploma 2nd
Year
Computer Science & Engineering
Arjun College of Technology & Sciences
prasannasai1420@gmail.com
ABSTRACT
Project Loon is a newly started research &
development project which has been
developed by Google with the mission of
providing Internet access to remote areas.
This Project Loon is designed with the
technology which is implementing to avoid
usage of expensive fiber cables that should
be installed underground to allow users to
connect internet. This Project Loon uses
balloons which are super pressured filled
with helium; each balloon’s electronics are
powered by a collection of solar panels that
sits between the envelope and hardware. For
a developing country like India with vast
usage of different connectivity, this is one of
the very essential elements forwards digital
era.
Keywords: Internet; Digital Era; Google;
Project Loon;
1. INTRODUCTION
If we reach the history of technology, we
can have a look at the evolution in it. In
Internet Technology there are lots of
advancements. It became so easy to do
anything with Internet which playing a key
role. But still three third of the world’s
population is not connected to the internet
due to several problems which can be either
it is a rural area or a mountain region. Here,
if we come to other side of the coin, the
evolution of technology made more people
to use internet from cables, fibers to portable
devices, from portable devices to wireless
networks. Though there is a vast
development in technology still man is
facing some issues wherever the natural
disasters, other accidents take place at a
particular area which will completely
disconnects the connectivity with rest of the
world. So from these problems, one thought
came out from Google which might solve all
the above discussed problems of man. It is
“Project Loon” which powers every region
on earth with internet service. By this, the
world still becomes smaller. No matter
where the place is, no matter how height the
region is and no matter if any natural
disaster occurs, but Project Loon is there to
connect the entire world with its valuable
Loon service. It is one of the most
wonderful ideas taken up by the Google and
it is going on till at present [1].
Figure 1: Google Project Loon

2. 2. OBJECTIVES OF STUDY
The main objectives of study in this paper
are
i. To explore the brief introduction of
the Project Loon.
ii. To give pithy information of the
working of the Project Loon.
iii. To survey the Project Loon.
iv. To investigate the Future of Project
Loon which help the whole world as
‘conclusion’.
3. METHODOLOGY
The present paper has referred the secondary
data available on the internet and referred
some journals to get the brief information on
the valuable invention by Google known as
Project Loon.
4. EXPLORATION OF THE
OBJECTIVES
i. THE BRIEF INTRODUCTION OF
THE PROJECT LOON
Project Loon is network of the balloons
travelling on the border of space, intended to
connect people in rural and remote areas. In
the case of satellite systems, the satellite is
rotating over the earth from a fixed point,
but in the case of the Project Loon, the loons
are floating in the stratosphere following its
east-west winds across the globe. While
Google is able to control it to a limited
extent of their speed, spacing and direction
of travel by moving the balloons up and
down into different air currents. The loons
largely go to the wind flowing direction.
You can think the loon as a mobile network
in reverse. Instead of having a fixed grid of
towers among which millions of subscribers
are moving. Loon will be having a fixed grid
of subscribers while the towers move from
place to place overhead [8].
Consequently, Project Loon has to deal
with many of the same problems faced by
the mobile operators in getting the Loon to
work. One of those problems is flexibility.
In mobile network the speed, capacity, and
network performance tend to suffer as you
and your Smartphone move further away
from the network. In the case of Loon,
homes and business will stay put on the
network but loon transmitters will appear
and disappear over the horizon, handing off
their signals to the next approaching
balloon. That means your loon connection
will be in constant state of topological flux,
continuously moving from cell center to cell
edge. Here the Loon engineers have created
a reflecting plate in its equipment which will
capture the signals even the transmitter path
is at an extreme obtuse angle [3].
Figure 2: Snapshot of Project Loon

3. ii. WORKING PROCESS OF
PROJECT LOON
Project Loon is of network of balloons
travelling on the edge of space, designed to
connect people in rural and remote areas,
help fill coverage gaps, and bring people
back online after disaster. Most
communications satellites are following the
earth’s rotation over the same fixed point on
the planet surface. But in the case of Loon,
the balloons are floating in the stratosphere
following its east-west winds across the
globe. While Google will be able to control
to a limited extent their spacing, speed and
direction of travel by moving the balloons
up and down into different air currents, the
balloons will largely go where the winds
take them. You can think of Loon as a
mobile network in reverse. Consequently,
Project Loon has to deal with many of the
same problems faced by mobile operators in
getting Loon to work. One of those
problems is resilience. In the mobile
network, speed, capacity and network
performance tend to suffer as you and your
smart phone move further away from the
tower. In the case of Loon, homes and
businesses will stay put but Loon
transmitters will appear and disappear over
the horizon, handing off their signals to the
next approaching balloon. That means your
Loon connection will be in constant state of
topological flux, continuously moving from
cell centre to cell edge. The design results in
uniform signal strength regardless of
whether balloon is directly over your home
or on the horizon [2].
iii. HOW LOON WORKS???
Project Loon balloons travel around 20 km
above the earth’s surface in the stratosphere
and generally steady and slow-moving at
between 5 and 20 mph, and each layer of
wind varies in direction and magnitude.
Project Loon uses software algorithms to
determine where its balloon needs to go
then moves each one into a layer of wind
blowing in the right direction. By moving
with the wind, the balloons can be arranged
to form one large communications network.
These massive structures are 15-meters
wide and made a from polyethylene film
that's only three times thicker than a
supermarket carrier bag, but still thick
enough to withstand high altitude air
pressures without exploding. However, the
responsibility of the balloon, and its helium
gas filling, is to get the real tech wizardry
in the air and keep it there. Each unit
carries a mini Linux-based computer, toting
the all-important Wi-Fi radios, GPS and
several sensors recording air temperature,
altitude and speed of movement. All of this
information is sent to Google's Command
Centre on the ground below where the each
balloon can be controlled to a certain
degree. Once it has reached the altitude of
20km (65,000ft), it's will end its ascent.
Then, as Google explains: "Signals are
transmitted from the balloons to a
specialized Internet antenna mounted to the
side of a home or workplace that use radio
frequency technology. The Internet antenna
is connected to a consumer grade router.
Web traffic that travels through the balloon
network is ultimately relayed to ground
stations, where it's connected to pre-
existing Internet infrastructure, like fiber
cables and our local telecommunications
partners. At stratospheric altitudes which
are twice as high as commercial aircraft fly,
so there'll be no unfortunate accidents.
There wind currents tend to move in very
Figure 3: Working Process of Project Loon

4. specific directions. Google's Loon uses a
custom-built, solar powered pump to
carefully inflate or deflate the balloon
remotely from the ground. The idea is that
each balloon rises and falls to the required
height in order to move in the required
direction at the required speed. From there,
they're like sailboats, which are designed
and eventually be able to stay in the air for
100 days at a time. When they reach the
end of their shift, they can be directed to a
designated rescue centers around the world
and replaced. Each balloon is networked to
one another with a radio transceiver as in a
mesh, designed to ensure signal reliability.
A second transceiver keeps the balloon in
contact with a network station on the
ground and beams an Internet signal to
specialized antennas that can be placed on
homes, much like a very small satellite TV
receiver. There is also a back-up
transceiver and a GPS on each balloon, so
Google can monitor a balloon's location.
And each balloon will carry weather
instruments, too. A solar collector powers
the balloon’s systems during the day, and
also charges a battery for night-time use.
The balloons maintain their positions by
reading the predictable air currents that
occur at their high altitude and slightly
adjusting their heights to stay in roughly
the same area [9].
CONCLUSION:
The system is still just experimental by
Google, but everyone believes it will
eventually bring Internet access to many
parts of the world where people have little or
no connectivity. They are lower cost and
less roundtrip time than a satellite, and,
given enough of these in the air at any given
moment in any given location, higher
capacity via the multiplicative effect
associated with wireless meshes. Though
some issues are rising against project. The
project is now working out how to make the
balloons stay in the area where they're
wanted. Not surprisingly, it's solving this
with “some complex algorithms and lots of
computing power”. Project Loon is now
looking expand the pilot in countries at the
same latitude as New Zealand. Might be
Google can come with reliable cost. If this
project went succeeded the world is going to
experience new things.
REFERENCES
[1]. IJCAE, Special Issue, December 2013,
203-205.
[2]. Marc Petron marc@engadget.com,
engadget.com
[3]. John Dix
Editor in Chief
jdix@nww.com, networkworld.com
[4]. Paul McNamara
Online News Editor
pmcnamara@nww.com
[5]. En.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Loon
[6]. http://www.google.com/loon/
[7]. www.googleimages.com/projectloon/
[8]. Wisconsin Project loon watch Report,
University of Minnesota.
[9]. Loon Book,
ISBN: 0878390405, 9780878390403
North Star Press.
Author Profile
V.Prasanna Kumar is
studying Diploma 2nd
year in
Computer Science &
Engineering Dep. from
Arjun College of
Technology & Sciences as
(2014-16 batch) who presented several papers in
Seminars, Presentations and National
Conferences which are being published in
International Journal. Presently working as a
Founder, Managing Director of a virtual

5. organization named APT Solutions which
provides its services to several Corporate &
Educational Clienteles.

6. organization named APT Solutions which
provides its services to several Corporate &
Educational Clienteles.