STRATOSHPHERIC CHANNEL MODELLING

Abstract: 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 looked into as regards the propagation and channel efficiency. The analysis of the choice model is presented using one of the performance test for channel models, the bit error rate (BER).