Ehhh…I mean, if the things have a GPS receiver, which I assume that they do, they can probably be configured to move to a given location and then only then flip on the cell radio to act as a relay.
EDIT: Honestly, I’m kind of surprised that someone hasn’t tried a drone that can deploy, say hydrogen or helium balloons with a relay radio hanging from them. It’s gotta be a complete pain in the ass to try to shoot balloons down, as they’re cheap, and they probably linger in an area long enough to permit for operations using them as a relay on an extended basis. They can also probably get a lot higher than a comparable drone, if that’s desirable.
EDIT: Honestly, I’m kind of surprised that someone hasn’t tried a drone that can deploy, say hydrogen or helium balloons
Balloons have already been tried, deploying them from drones is a pain so they’re mostly ground based. Russians are currently doing that to compensate for starlink losses
edit: look up Barrage-1, that’s their current 5G balloon testbed
Ehhh…I mean, if the things have a GPS receiver, which I assume that they do, they can probably be configured to move to a given location and then only then flip on the cell radio to act as a relay.
EDIT: Honestly, I’m kind of surprised that someone hasn’t tried a drone that can deploy, say hydrogen or helium balloons with a relay radio hanging from them. It’s gotta be a complete pain in the ass to try to shoot balloons down, as they’re cheap, and they probably linger in an area long enough to permit for operations using them as a relay on an extended basis. They can also probably get a lot higher than a comparable drone, if that’s desirable.
Balloons have already been tried, deploying them from drones is a pain so they’re mostly ground based. Russians are currently doing that to compensate for starlink losses
edit: look up Barrage-1, that’s their current 5G balloon testbed