Overview of development and regulatory aspects of high altitude platform system

TLDR: In this paper, two types of applications using HAP systems: one with HAP Station (HAPS) and the other with HAPS as International Mobile Telecommunication (IMT) Base Station (HIBS) are introduced.

Abstract: High Altitude Platform (HAP) systems comprise airborne base stations deployed above 20 km and below 50 km to provide wireless access to devices in large areas. In this paper, two types of applications using HAP systems: one with HAP Station (HAPS) and the other with HAPS as International Mobile Telecommunication (IMT) Base Station (HIBS) are introduced. The HAP system with HAPS has already received wide recognition from the academia and the industry and is considered as an effective solution to provide internet access between fixed points in suburban and rural areas as well as emergencies. HAP systems with HIBS to serve IMT user terminal have just started to draw attention from researchers. The HIBS application is expected to be an anticipate mobile service application complementing the IMT requirement for cell phone or other mobile user terminals in which the service field of HAPS application cannot reach. After describing and characterizing the two types of systems, coexistence studies and simulation results using both the Power Fluxed Density (PFD) mask and separation distance based methods are presented in this paper. This paper also predicts future trends of the evolution paths for the HAP systems along with challenges and possible solutions from the standpoint of system architectures and spectrum regulation.