For more information about our project and hardware demo, please visit our website: https://teamveda.wixsite.com/helios

*(mobile version of the website is not scaled properly)

Github repository: https://github.com/andreiro45/spaceapps_2019_Team_VEDA

Team introduction:

VEDA, a group of passionate individuals, has managed to find a way to help people gain internet access in the middle of the ocean by creating an effective and cheap method. The team consists of:

Nicola Andrei-Nicolae- Head of the electronics department, a dedicated and hardworking person, always striving towards perfection.

Nicolescu Vlad- Next to Nicola Andrei, Vlad has proven himself out to be a very talented person and an extremely important asset to the team.

Iova Alin-Petre- He has a very good eye for observing even the smallest mistakes. He is always making sure that the final project will be delivered without a scratch.

Iova Daniel-Alexandru- He is one of the most determined and ambitious people in our team. He gives his heart and soul into any project and wants everything to end up perfect.

Petrescu Alex- He designed vital parts of the project as well as help with the research, thus making a huge difference in the development of our work.

Istrate Darius- He is a sincere person that likes helping people. He enjoys finding out details about the things that he is passionate about and describes himself out to be a hardworking person.

Grecu Elena-Francesca- She is the heart of the team, taking everything personally, thus striving for the best results at everything she puts her mind to.

Leading into the topic:

It is currently known that a reliable and cheap internet connection can only take place on land.

We tried to find a way to provide internet to people in the middle of the ocean by using a mesh network between the terrestrial, maritime and aerial domains.

Project's importance:

This project has a vital role in the future development of internet connection overseas because it solves one of the most pending issues of modern times : what does one do when they find themselves stuck in the middle of nowhere with no immediate means of communication?

What do people gain from our project:

Our motivation as a group is to help people who have jobs that keep them at sea for a large period of time connect with their loved ones in a secure and fast way. It can also be useful for people who go on cruises or just about anyone who does any type of activity over oceans.

Solution:

We tried looking at the problem from many perspectives so we could find a solution that could potentially solve every issue that might come forth as time went on.

The solution we came up with is HELIOS. The name stands for Hierarchically Enabled Long range Internet Over Seas. It is a revolutionary system based on a huge mesh network spanning millions of kilometers serving billions of users worldwide. The mesh is formed of ground-based relays, users, and balloons.The majority of the connections are inter-client and between ground relays and near-shore clients. In the configuration, the more users are in an area, the more reliable their connection to the internet will be. In short, each member of the mesh is connected to the next nearest member, each member being a user and a relay at the same time. Due to the balloons being located 20 km above sea level, they can communicate with exponentially more ground relays or boats at the same time.

What problem does it solve:

The way our project works is based on two simple but vital assets:

- Wired Drones

- Balloons

We found out that by creating a mesh network using drones is way cheaper than any other solution to this problem. Every ship must have a wired drone in order for the mesh network to do its job properly. They fly at about 150 m in the air, and since they're wired, they could stay afloat as much as the user needs, since it is only using electric power. The drones use an omni-directional antenna to facilitate the connection between other drones, ground relays and balloons. They also use an automatic stabilization system enabling them to be able to maintain its altitude even when the boat is moving. The connection between them has a long range of maximum 110 km. The electronic parts are no other than already existing technologies which have been tested, guaranteeing the success of our mesh network. Here comes a small problem though: according to the NASA Tracking System, we noticed that there are a couple of areas in which there are no boats nearby, so we came up with another concept that we took to the next level in terms of price and functionality.

Balloons:

These balloons travel above airplanes and most weather events, at approximately 20 km above sea level. Our balloons will be deployed from one of several launch sites located at sea. Predictive models of the winds and an autonomous decision-making algorithm determines the movement of each balloon up and down wind layers thus keeping it in the same approximate active area of the transmission cone. A group of balloons can be part or can help create a mesh network. With the help of its self-positioning system and it's high altitude, it can easily connect and communicate with other balloons. Because each one is equipped with a very directional antenna pointed towards the earth, they can connect to users that are not part of a network linked mesh, or users that are at a very long distance from the nearest access point in an area of roughly 80 km in diameter. Thanks to its clever positioning system, the balloons can hover above the same general location they are deployed to, with an absolute positioning error of one km.

The entire network can work fully autonomously, efficiently routing connectivity across balloons and ground stations while taking in account balloon motion, obstructions and weather events.

Every balloon is being tracked using GPS, constantly sending its altitude and its exact position in every moment. When a balloon is ready to be taken out of service, the balloon is released or vented (depending on its condition) and the flight capsule lands in the water with the help of a parachute. Descents are coordinated with local air traffic control in hopes of land the balloon safely. Naval recovery teams then collect it by finding the beacon signal emitted when the electronics come in contact with water thus helping reuse the computer inside the flight capsule as well as other electronics.

Once recovered, every balloon's capsule outer shell is replaced since the plastic polystyrene gets damaged while on flight at such extreme weathers of -90 degrees Celsius.

Even though a balloon's average cost is higher than the one of a drone's, it solves one of the most important problems that most wouldn't have even taken into consideration: internet for those who aren't located near any boat or land. We estimate the price to be around $20.000 per balloon and $1.000 per drone. Since most of the problems can be solved by drones, the number of balloons required can be limited to only a few balloons per user, located in a remote area (depending on the distance between the closest mesh member and the user). The balloons can also be deployed to assist in the completion of an incomplete mesh network (i.e. when a group of ships is too far away from the main mesh, thus not having any internet connectivity, and needing their range extended).

After all, we faced lots of problems which required us to not only research but to also compare other existing solutions to the one we have created. HELIOS represents the result of hours of research, debating about the best possible solution and trying to convert our vision into reality.

What we learned and what challenges we faced:

Every project has its challenges, and our team has learned that the hard way.

The main problem we faced regarded mesh network. After a lot of thought we have managed to find the problem that many others hadn't even thought of: what does one do if they find themselves in the middle of nowhere without any means of communication, access to the internet or the ability to contact their loved ones. Another problem we had to face was making the balloons communicate with each other, but we think we managed to provide an inexpensive suitable solution for that.

Development process:

We have decided to create a prototype of the communication between the balloons.

The system consists of a laser transmitter, receiver and a positioning system. We designed a Python script that sends the coordinates of a QR code located within a camera's video stream to the positioning system. This system uses a galvo mirror scan head to help guide the laser to the receiver. In the final application the coordinates received from the Python script will be replaced with GPS coordinates. We used Python and QR codes for the sake of our presentation to simulate GPS position indoors (QR codes were used because of their uniqueness, we weren't interested in the contents they stored).

Tools:

For the presentation, we used the following parts and tools:

For the positioning system:

1. Two hard drives

2. Two audio amplifiers

3. A two output I2C DAC

4. A micro-controller

For the transmission system:

1. A high-power laser diode

2. An operational amplifiers

1. 3. A micro-controller

For the receiver:

1. Four solar panels

2. A Schimtt trigger

3. A micro-controller

Programs used:

Python: https://www.python.org/

Visual Studio: https://visualstudio.microsoft.com/

Atom: https://atom.io/

3ds Max: https://www.autodesk.com/products/3ds-max/overview

Arduino: https://www.arduino.cc/

Resources:

https://worldwind.earth/explorer/

https://www.vox.com/2016/4/25/11503152/shipping-routes-map?fbclid=IwAR3OmHLInrwEWixJImRPyQXiHASd0u9IN6aN7bOJl8LpfqMu-b_Y5VNcmBY

https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/balloon-9fcd7fcfdc1d4d2f827d2570b3d557ba