Page 81 - World Airnews Magazine January 2020 Edition

NEWS DIGITAL

HOW ONE BORING SUMMER

TURNED INTO FLYING CELL

PHONE TOWERS FOR AFRICA

By Andrew Wight

coverage, use about as much energy as a drones was providing high-bandwidth
microwave oven and be connected up to mobile internet coverage of a wind-surfing
What did you do on your last solar panels on the ground. competition in France.
long, boring summer? Minnesota-based “We can cover 20-30 miles² with a drone “We had winds of up to 40-50 knots,
engineer and entrepreneur Rahul Tiwari that size,” Tiwari said, “And they can stay in which was too strong for the windsurfers,
got bored - and two years later has a the air for a month at a time thanks to their but was no trouble at all for the drone,”
tether.”
company called Spooky Action with the According to Tiwari, having a drone Tiwari said.
goal of providing drone-based cell phone above your town or village isn’t the Lightning, however, is still a problem - but
towers, especially in the global south. noise-pest you might assume - Drones scale the drones can be hauled down in a hurry
From June to August of 2017, Tiwari had negatively, so as drones get bigger, they if need be.
a summer break from his studies at Purdue produce less sound. According to Tiwari, the portability
University and came across a rather niche “The laws of physics are on our side,” he is another advantage of a drone over a
problem: anti-poaching efforts in Africa said. traditional tower.
were being hampered by the fact that both “A typical cell phone is 100-150 feet tall, “Imagine a town that can be covered with
human pilots and regular drones were but we can get our drones up to 400 feet, five drones,” he said.
limited in how long they could be in the air. so they don’t have to be right in the middle “But if everyone goes to work, the drones
According to Tiwari, the answer was a of a town and the noise is less.” can be redeployed closer to where the
tethered drone - which could stay in the air Even if this concept sounds like people are and move back to the residen-
for hours. science fiction, the proof is already in the tial areas at night.”
Just two months after sending an initial pudding - in November, one of the TeleLift “You can land and take off based on need
inquiry email, Tiwari was in a - if there’s no demand,
nature reserve in South Africa’s you can keep them on
Eastern Cape region, testing out land,” he said.
a new anti-poaching drone. Less than two
“Instead of 20 to 30 minutes months ago, a special-
of endurance, our drone could ly-designed DJI Agras
stay up for six hours at a time, MG1-S drone was
tethered to a vehicle,” said field-tested in Cheju,
Rahul Tiwari, Spooky Action Tanzania, spraying an
After that successful insecticide designed
experience, he dropped out of to eradicate Malaria-
Purdue and spent a year and a bearing mosquitoes.
half in a basement lab figuring At the time, Bart
out to turn his proof of concept Knols, a medical
prototype into a fully-fledged entomologist and one
product - that product is now of the co-founders
the flying watchtower model ‘The anti-malaria
called "SuperFly” drone’ (AMD) project
But without cell phone said the field trials
coverage, it is hard to get data were the culmination
to where it is needed in a timely of years of effort to use
fashion. Before long, Tiwari’s drones to help fight
start-up wanted to give drones malaria. Q
a new place and task: hovering About Spooky
almost permanently, providing Action: Spooky Action
cell phone coverage. is a Minnesota-based
Tiwari said in place of those Spooky Action's TeleLift ‘flying cell phone tower’ drone tech company that
towers, drones the size of flying on its tether during testing in Minnesota, USA builds tethered drones
dining tables can provide LTE that fly forever.

World Airnews | January Extra 2020
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