4G Communications Based on High Altitude Stratospheric Platforms: Channel Modeling and Performance Evaluation

In recent years a great interest has arisen toward the development of High Altitude Platforms (HAPs), which are low cost stratospheric aircrafts carrying payloads tailored for a wide range of applications within telecommunications and remote sensing. These platforms are able to °y at altitudes ranging between 17 and 20 km, with a potential endurance of weeks to months, features that make them attractive for the provision of future personal communication services. This pa- per deals with the theoretical derivation of a channel model for the communication link between the platform and terres- trial mobile users or stations. Small scale fading e®ects are analyzed and due to the particular geometry of the propaga- tion scenario, a speci¯c model for the stratospheric channel is obtained.