Facebook abandoned another drone project

On 3/29/2019, Business Insider confirmed that Facebook had been working on a secret drone project codenamed Catalina but abandoned it about a year ago. The project involved developing small, bird-sized, fixed-wing drones for boosting smart phone data speeds. The secretive nature of this project may strike some people as odd, especially since also last year, Facebook had publicly announced the termination of its similar internet drone project Aquila. Nevertheless, Facebook is still working on developing internet drones with Airbus and participating in setting aviation regulations in the US and other countries. The company’s patent portfolio also reflects its continuing efforts in UAV innovation.

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