The European HeliNet Broadband Communications Application – An Update on Progress

HeliNet is a large European project that commenced in January 2000, which is being carried out by 10 European partners. As well as the development of a third scale prototype plane-based high altitude platform, the project includes the development of three pilot applications: environmental monitoring, traffic localisation, and broadband telecommunications. The broadband telecommunication application is being developed for residential/small and medium enterprise (SME) users and also for disaster relief or special events. The major challenge with this type of delivery-platform is the limited payload space and power available, which calls for creative solutions in all areas of the broadband design and development. This paper provides an update on the development of an outline system specification for the broadband application. The paper discusses possible system level design aspects including cell layout, candidate broadband transmission standards, e.g. IEEE 802.16, and possible link budgets, including the constraints posed by the propagation environment. The selection of suitable power efficient modulation and coding schemes is described and it is demonstrated how such schemes will be used to cope with rain fades. The paper also covers the selection of suitable resource management strategies and network protocol issues that are compatible with the candidate standards. The mm-wave spot beam antennas are then discussed. Finally, this paper describes some of the future projects and collaboration opportunities available.