Achieving maximum system capacity in multiple-high altitude platforms through interference alignment

Abstract

High-altitude platforms (HAPs) provide higher throughput to the users in ground unlike conventional terrestrial communication. Various capacity improvement techniques with multiple HAPs has been suggested such as cellular architecture and virtual multiple-input multiple-output (V-MIMO) systems. Maximizing system capacity in overlapped coverage area is still an open research area. In this scenario, we propose a system that maximizes capacity between two HAP and two ground stations. The main advantage of our proposed scheme is that each HAP can send data to the receiver without any cooperation. Restriction of precise beamforming of HAP antennas for cellular like architecture is removed with our scheme. The bit error rate performance of the proposed scheme in Rural and Urban scenarios are compared. In addition, the system capacity at various signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) values and Rician factors for multiple HAP configurations are analyzed. The simulation results validate the improvement in capacity compared to the existing schemes.