Das Capitolin
07-13-2006, 05:01 PM
A zeppelin will replace all the terrestrial mobile phone antennas in Switzerland - if a Swiss inventor has his way.
Should Kamal Alavi's project for the high-tech airship take off, the worlds of mobile telephony and data transmission would be turned on their heads.
Not only would the technology, called High Altitude Platform Systems (Haps), make the current 1,000 earth-bound antennas redundant, it would drastically reduce radiation.
A Swiss of Iranian extraction, Alavi is a former aerospace engineer turned entrepreneur who heads his own firm, Stratxx. Together with a team of 50 scientists, he is preparing a 2007 test run of the airship, which he has named the "X station".
Thanks to a GPS steering system developed by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, the 60-meter long helium-filled balloon will remain stationary at 21 kilometres above the earth.
A small-unmanned aircraft outfitted with a mobile phone antenna and other devices for transmitting digital data will be attached to the zeppelin. The X station has been equipped with giant propellers to help counter the almost constant buffeting from the wind.
Solar panels will supply the energy to propel the airplane and antenna. Underneath will be a platform containing technical equipment, conceived by Ruag, the large Swiss aerospace concern.
Read article here: http://www.swissinfo.org/eng/feature/detail/Mobile_phone_airship_to_conquer_stratosphere.html? siteSect=108&sid=6873540&cKey=1152528169000
Should Kamal Alavi's project for the high-tech airship take off, the worlds of mobile telephony and data transmission would be turned on their heads.
Not only would the technology, called High Altitude Platform Systems (Haps), make the current 1,000 earth-bound antennas redundant, it would drastically reduce radiation.
A Swiss of Iranian extraction, Alavi is a former aerospace engineer turned entrepreneur who heads his own firm, Stratxx. Together with a team of 50 scientists, he is preparing a 2007 test run of the airship, which he has named the "X station".
Thanks to a GPS steering system developed by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, the 60-meter long helium-filled balloon will remain stationary at 21 kilometres above the earth.
A small-unmanned aircraft outfitted with a mobile phone antenna and other devices for transmitting digital data will be attached to the zeppelin. The X station has been equipped with giant propellers to help counter the almost constant buffeting from the wind.
Solar panels will supply the energy to propel the airplane and antenna. Underneath will be a platform containing technical equipment, conceived by Ruag, the large Swiss aerospace concern.
Read article here: http://www.swissinfo.org/eng/feature/detail/Mobile_phone_airship_to_conquer_stratosphere.html? siteSect=108&sid=6873540&cKey=1152528169000