High altitude platform stations in design solutions for emergency services

Abstract

High Altitude Platform Stations (HAPS) are expected to conform a third major infrastructure for communications and broadcasting, after terrestrial and satellite systems. The proposal, which is maintained by many authors, is the use of HAPS as alternative wireless network provider that can partial replace or add capacity to damaged or overloaded wireless networks during a man-made or large-and small-scale natural disaster. During these critical phenomena, the telecommunications infrastructure and the required coverage for the emergency service operations might be unavailable due to the destroyed area or overloading by the excessive communications demand. Along with satellites, high altitude platforms (HAPs) will be completely isolated from the effects of disasters on the ground. A couple of stratospheric-based network scenarios are considered as examples for a HAPS-aided disaster deployment assessing communication viability and outlining issues in interoperability with existing networks.