A Flexible Communication System for High-Speed Broadband Wireless Access from High Altitude Platforms: a CAPANINA Candidate

This paper discusses the provision of broadband services from High Altitude Platforms (HAPs), and analyzes a flexible communication system for HAP-based multimedia communications. Particular attention is paid to the broadband connection to high-speed trains, as the primary reference scenario addressed in the CAPANINA project, which inspired this work. The high coding gain required by this high-mobility scenario is achieved through adaptive concatenated coding schemes, while smart antennas operating with adaptive beamforming algorithms are employed at the ground stations to cope with the fast relative movement of the end-point antennas. Simulated system performance based on a one-ray Ricean fading model of the stratospheric channel show the effectiveness of the proposed approach to achieve target QoS requirements.