Toyota is experimenting with the installation of satellite dishes on their cars

^{Photo Toyota}

Toyota, a well-known Japanese automaker, intends to expose its Mirai hydrogen cars to an unusual modification: the company is experimenting with installing satellite antennas in them in order to make a real multimedia center out of the car. It is planned that the ability to freely communicate with the Internet at speeds that far exceed LTE and where there is no coverage of mobile networks, will make using Mirai more comfortable for users. Engineers of the company want the machine to “download” at least 1 TB of data per month, or, equivalently, 100 HD movies.


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Technically, a satellite dish will consist of several elements in the form of regular hexagons mounted to the roof of the car - in other words, it should not bulge ugly. Depending on the required communication channel, this number may vary. The power consumption of the antenna will be less than 10 W, and in its standard configuration it will provide a download speed of 50 Mbit per second. In order to provide high-quality reception of satellite signals, the antenna will be embedded in a material with good permeability for radio waves.

So far, the project is in the concept car stage. The development is engaged in the American company Kymeta , partly funded by Toyota. Kymeta CEO Nathan Kunz (Nathan Kundtz) sticks to that point of view, after a few years cars can easily start transmitting data over a satellite channel at gigabit speed per second, thereby significantly exceeding the speed of 5G networks. As noted by Kunz, Toyota wants to start installing satellite antennas as soon as their development will be completed, measuring for this "a few years." According to him, such an unusual option for a car should not affect its value in any way.

Inside the “connected” car Mirai will look very futuristic: