High Altitude Platform Stations (HAPs) are communication facilities situated at
an altitude of 17 to 30 km and at a specified, nominal, fixed point relative to
the Earth. They are mostly solar-powered, unmanned, and remotely-operated.
These platforms have the capability of carrying multipurpose communications
relay payload, which could be in the form of full base station or, in some
cases, a simple transponder as is being used in satellite communication
systems. HAPs, when fully deployed will have the capability of providing
services and applications ranging from broadband wireless access, navigation
and positioning systems, remote-sensing and weather observation/monitoring
systems, future generation mobile telephony etc.
HAPs are also known to be low cost when it comes to its implementation and are
expected to be the next big provider of infrastructure for wireless
communications. There have been a lot of ongoing and exciting research works
into various aspects of this emergent technology. As radio Engineers, the need
to predict the channel quality and analyze the performance evaluation of such
stratospheric propagation has generated quite a few models. Although some of
the models under consideration are from the existing terrestrial and satellite
communications which in some way, have some relationships with this new
technology. This thesis work provides some insight into this new aspect of
wireless communications in terms of the need for a new system, its benefits,
challenges services provided and applications supported. Existing models
already researched and developed for HAPS are reviewed; one of them was picked
and deeply loo...
