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US 8,910,905 B2Granted
Combined balloon shipping container and deployment system
AssigneeGoogle Inc.
InventorsRichard Wayne DeVaul, Eric Teller, Clifford L. Biffle, Joshua Weaver, Brad Rhodes
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Disclosed embodiments relate to a combined shipping container and balloon deployment system for deploying balloons into a balloon network. Such a shipping container may allow one or more balloons to be transported to a desired launch location, and then launched directly from the shipping container.
Claims21
A system comprising:
- a shipping container that is closable to enclose a plurality of balloons, wherein each balloon comprises an envelope and a payload;
- a communication interface that is operable to receive a launch instruction for each of the plurality of balloons;
- one or more balloon-deployment systems coupled to the shipping container, wherein at least one balloon-deployment system is operable to open the shipping container for deployment of one or more of the balloons, and wherein each balloon deployment system is operable to deploy one or more of the balloons while the shipping container is open;
- and
- a control system coupled to the shipping container, wherein the control system is operable to respond to the respective launch instruction for each of the plurality of balloons by causing the balloon-deployment system to open the shipping container and launch the balloon for which the launch instruction was received from the open shipping container;
- wherein the shipping container further comprises (i) a water storage container, (ii) a rain collection system arranged to fill the water storage container, (iii) an electrolysis system that is operable to generate hydrogen lift gas from water stored in the water storage container, wherein the electrolysis system is configured to provide the generated hydrogen lift gas to the balloon.
3 more elements
A system comprising:
- a shipping container that is closable to enclose a plurality of balloons, wherein each balloon comprises an envelope and a payload;
- one or more balloon-deployment systems coupled to the shipping container, wherein at least one balloon-deployment system is operable to deploy the balloon;
- and
- a control system coupled to the shipping container, wherein the control system is operable to respond to a respective launch instruction for each of the plurality of balloons by causing balloon-deployment system to launch the respective balloon from the shipping container for operation in a balloon network;
- wherein the shipping container further comprises (i) a water storage container, (ii) a rain collection system arranged to fill the water storage container, (iii) an electrolysis system that is operable to generate hydrogen lift gas from water stored in the water storage container, wherein the electrolysis system is configured to provide the generated hydrogen lift gas to the balloon.
2 more elements
A system comprising:
- a shipping container that is closable to enclose a plurality of balloons, wherein each balloon comprises an envelope and a payload;
- one or more balloon-deployment systems coupled to the shipping container, wherein each balloon-deployment system is operable to deploy one or more of the balloons;
- and
- a control system coupled to the shipping container, wherein the control system is operable to:
- detect a launch event corresponding to a particular one or more of the plurality of balloons;
- and
- in response to detection of the launch event, operate at least one balloon-deployment system to deploy the particular one or more balloons from the shipping container for operation in a balloon network;
- wherein the shipping container further comprises (i) a water storage container, (ii) a rain collection system arranged to fill the water storage container, (iii) an electrolysis system that is operable to generate hydrogen lift gas from water stored in the water storage container, wherein the electrolysis system is configured to provide the generated hydrogen lift gas to the balloon.
5 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.