Discovered during a dig through the FCC's experimental radio applications by Steven J. Crowley, it has come to light that North American Eagle is trying to install what will presumably be the fastest-moving Wi-Fi network on the ground--because it's being built inside a vehicle designed to break the world land speed record (and the sound barrier) at 1280 kilometres per hour.
North American Eagle's latest vehicle is basically a converted Lockheed F-104 jet, 45,000 horsepower turbo jet engine and all, designed to travel on land rather than in the air. At 17 metres long, the vehicle weighs about 6300 kilos and blasts a 6-plus-metre long plume of fire upon hitting maximum afterburner, so it's not surprising that it's designed to break the world speed record, currently sitting at just under 1228 kph.
This vehicle is designed to top 1287 kph, but it needs to collect data while driving so the team can monitor and study how it performs. Wi-Fi is fast enough to handle the transmission of data and video, so the team will have to install some fancy Tropos systems to beam that data from the race area (a dry lake bed in Nevada, U.S.A) to the team's base stations. The car is decked out with all kinds of sensors, from accelerometers to piezoelectric sensors to gyroscopes. Beaming Wi-Fi at those speeds, in real time, is no mean feat, but the team is already well on its way to breaking the speed record, with test runs topping 640 kph, so hopefully they can install it soon to properly monitor the tests.
[via GigaOm]
