1. Cell phones from 30,000 ft are going to produce incredibly low resolution images, especially when taken through the window of an airliner. They're also all going to be oblique.
2. If you use real camera rigs, you're going to have to pay a fortune to outfit enough planes. Given that you don't control where the asset goes, this seems really inefficient.
3. Does the entire US actually get covered by all those flights? While ATC tries to give direct routing a lot more than they used to it still seems like you're going to end up with areas where planes hardly ever fly. I'd be really curious to see for a given swath what revisit rate you could get with what confidence from historical ADS-B data.
Please don't take this negatively. I previously cofounded an aerial imagery company and have designed aerial camera systems for a large aerospace company. I came up with an idea like yours, but wrote it off for the reasons I mentioned. It's really cool to see someone pursuing it. Feel free to reach out if you'd like. My email is cornell at cgw3 dot org.
I think it does for a few very specific reasons. I'll answer your questions in order:
1. Resolution is a function of altitude, atmospheric conditions, and camera capabilities. At 30,000ft with zoom, we can get results around 10cm/px on an average smartphone (iPhone SE 2). That's still pretty sharp but we can further enhance the image using satellite base maps, upscaling, and other inference techniques. Obliques can be corrected and used to assemble a "full image" when the opposite oblique is captured, but remains useful (to a certain point on the horizon--right now about 15 miles at cruising). There's still a vast amount of information we can obtain at higher altitudes including crop yield data, snow pack, reservoir/lake water levels, forest density, etc.
2. The physical device we're prototyping is about the size of a headphone case--I actually used a Bose QC25 headphone case to cast the model! There are a few potential avenues to deploy physical sensing hardware on flights including revenue sharing with airlines, using passengers to deploy, and other partnerships in the general aviation space. The DoD in particular has expressed interest in a purpose-built device for aerial sensing but for now, mobile device crowdsourcing in the commercial markets is the focus.
3. There are huge spots in and around US airspace where planes cannot (or generally do not) fly. Satellites will remain the key players when optimizing for coverage, but the high-frequency revisit I believe is best obtained using aerial imagery. I always like to tell people that's why we're "Not A Satellite" instead of "Anti-Satellite". There's more than enough room for both, and we see a huge opportunity to increase revisit and provide a complementary offering to satellite imagery.
We've looked at revisit frequency against ADS-B data and about 80% of the US sees at least 2 flights within a mile each day, exponentially more so around cities and developed areas. Many of our customers are interested in monitoring sites within 15 miles of a major international airport, so we're able to obtain high-resolution images using mobile devices because aircraft are typically below ~8,000ft within that radius. LAX for example can see as many as 500 takeoffs and landings each day, and there are hundreds of industrial sites (ports, fulfillment warehouses, other infrastructure) within the approach path.
I genuinely appreciate your questions. We're still early-stage and the discussions I've had on HN alone have vastly improved the quality of our pitch, business plan, and exposed major blind spots. Thanks again for the kind words, and I'll be sure to drop you a line!
1. Cell phones from 30,000 ft are going to produce incredibly low resolution images, especially when taken through the window of an airliner. They're also all going to be oblique.
2. If you use real camera rigs, you're going to have to pay a fortune to outfit enough planes. Given that you don't control where the asset goes, this seems really inefficient.
3. Does the entire US actually get covered by all those flights? While ATC tries to give direct routing a lot more than they used to it still seems like you're going to end up with areas where planes hardly ever fly. I'd be really curious to see for a given swath what revisit rate you could get with what confidence from historical ADS-B data.
Please don't take this negatively. I previously cofounded an aerial imagery company and have designed aerial camera systems for a large aerospace company. I came up with an idea like yours, but wrote it off for the reasons I mentioned. It's really cool to see someone pursuing it. Feel free to reach out if you'd like. My email is cornell at cgw3 dot org.