Broadband trials' high-flying success
Posted on 31 January 2005
Now the consortium plans further trials, testing the feasibility of using high-altitude aerial platforms - airships or solar-powered aircraft - to bring broadband Internet to remote rural areas and even fast-moving trains.
The technology will provide broadband services which are 200 times faster than current services.
Researchers ran the trials, using a tethered balloon at a former RAF airfield at Pershore, Worcestershire, to show that it is possible to use mm-wave band (28/31GHz) and very high data-rate optical communication systems from aerial platforms.
High rate data systems allow more information to be moved in less time, making downloading a file, movie, photographs and music much faster.
SkyLINC Ltd, one of the UK-based partners in CAPANINA, successfully set up a tethered aerial platform and made several preliminary radio frequency tests to and from the balloon. BTExact (part of BT) were also able to use the platform to trial several broadband applications, such as video on demand and high-speed Internet.
To conclude the tests, DLR, a German-based partner, carried out some critical optical communication tracking tests. Optical techniques offer very high data-rate communications and are being developed to provide links between two aerial platforms, or between an aerial platform and a ground station.
CAPANINA aims to deliver wireless broadband at speeds of up to 120Mbits/second from aerial platforms such that rural, suburban and moving users can have cost-effective broadband communications. The ultimate aim is to have a number of the platforms in the stratosphere at altitudes of around 20km with one platform serving a region of approximately 60km.
Spurred on by the successes further trials using higher altitude platforms are planned involving CGS from Italy and NICT from Japan.
Notes to editors:
- The project will deliver broadband connections up to 2,000 times faster than via a traditional modem and 200 times faster than today?s 'wired' ADSL broadband.
- The University of York leads the project, known as 'Capanina'. The team will develop HAPs-based systems which can use the spectrum efficiently to reach all areas. These systems will include steerable antennas which will use the latest digital signal processing.
- York Electronics Centre at the University of York is co-ordinating the international project to help ensure that results from across the world are published and exploited.
- The other European and Japanese partners specialise in various aspects, including the development and construction of equipment for trials, the creation of business models, and free-space optical communications.
- The first objective of the Capanina project is to deliver broadband connections to rural areas across Europe.
- Capanina is a 5.6 million Euro project involving 14 partners from across Europe and Japan. The majority of the funding comes from the EU?s Framework 6 Programme.
- The project is named after the restaurant in Italy where initial discussions were held.
- Other CAPANINA partners are:
- Jozef Stefan Institute (Slovenia)
- CERCOM/Dipartimento di Elettronica - Politecnico di Torino (Italy)
- EuroConcepts s.r.l (Italy)
- Universitat Politecnica Catalunya/Department.TSC (Spain)
- Carlo Gavazzi Space S.p.A. (Italy)
- Budapest University of Technology and Economics (Hungary)
- BTexact Technologies (UK)
- Deutsches Zentrum f?r Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V. (Germany)
- SkyLINC Ltd (UK)
- Centre Suisse d?Electronique et de Microtechnique SA (Switzerland)
- Contraves Space AG (Switzerland)
- National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (Japan)
- Further details about all the partners can be found on the following web site page www.capanina.org/partners/partners.php
- The Department of Electronics at York has a high reputation for teaching and research, with current research funding exceeding 5 million Euro. The key personnel for Capanina are the members of the Communications Research Group and Physical Layer Research Group, which collectively have approximately 40 staff and research students. The Groups have participated in a number of EU projects including the HeliNet project, the forerunner of CAPANINA, and FLOWS which is dealing with flexible convergence of wireless standards and services, including multi-band antenna array design.
- Images and video clips can be seen at www.capanina.org/news.php