Use of balloons and blimps to improve coverage range in Low Power Wireless Wide Area Networks

The availability of devices suitable to construct low power wireless wide area networks, offers the possibility to set up simple infrastructures for data sensing in a larger region, using simple single hop wireless sensor networks. Avoiding multi-hop routing schemes, allows to Save energy and reduces the probability of interruptions and the deployment cost. We have recently applied this solution in a hilly environment, to collect meteorological data from crops. In such an environment, when unlicensed frequencies are used, an elevated access point allows direct line-of-sight between devices. To avoid the construction of expensive towers, one possible solution is to lift the access points with balloons, blimps and kites, reaching up to 350 feet of elevation. Preliminary results are presented in the paper, together with a comparison among the technological solutions adopted for the multi and single hop cases.