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About one-third of the global population, around 3 billion people, don’t have access to the Internet or have poor connections because of infrastructure limitations, economic disparities, and geographic isolation.
Today’s satellites and ground-based networks leave communications gaps where, because of geography, setting up traditional ground-based communications equipment would be too expensive.
High-altitude platform stations – telecommunications equipment positioned high in the air, on uncrewed balloons, airships, gliders, and airplanes – could increase social and economic equality by filling internet connectivity gaps in ground and satellite coverage. This could allow more people to participate fully in the digital age.
One of us, Mohamed-Slim Alouini, is an electrical engineer who contributed to an experiment that showed it is possible to provide high data rates and ubiquitous 5G coverage from the stratosphere. The stratosphere is the second lowest layer of the atmosphere, ranging from 4 to 30 miles above the Earth. Commercial planes usually fly in the lower part of the stratosphere. The experiment measured signals between platform stations and users on the ground in three scenarios: a person staying in one place, a person driving a car, and a person operating a boat.
My colleagues measured how strong the signal was in relation to interference and background noise levels. This is one of the measures of network reliability. The results showed that the platform stations can support high-data-rate applications such as streaming 4K resolution videos and can cover 15 to 20 times the area of standard terrestrial towers.
Early attempts by Facebook and Google to commercially deploy platform stations were unsuccessful. But recent investments, technological improvements, and interest from traditional aviation companies and specialized aerospace startups may change the equation.
The goal is global connectivity, a cause that brought the platform stations idea recognition in the World Economic Forum’s 2024 Top 10 Emerging Technologies report. The international industry initiative HAPS Alliance, which includes academic partners, is also pushing toward that goal.
Fast, Cost-Effective, Flexible
Platform stations would be faster, more cost-effective, and more flexible than satellite-based systems.
Because they keep communications equipment closer to Earth than satellites, the stations could offer stronger, higher-capacity signals. This would enable real-time communications speedy enough to communicate with standard smartphones, high-resolution capabilities for imaging tasks, and greater sensitivity for sensing applications. They transmit data via free-space optics, or light beams, and large-scale antenna array systems, which can send large amounts of data quickly.
Satellites can be vulnerable to eavesdropping or jamming when their orbits bring them over adversarial countries. However, platform stations remain within the airspace of a single country, which reduces that risk.
High-altitude platform stations are also easier to put in place than satellites, which have high launch and maintenance costs. The regulatory requirements and compliance procedures required to secure spots in the stratosphere are likely to be simpler than the complex international laws governing satellite orbits. Platform stations are also easier to upgrade, so improvements could be deployed more quickly.
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(Credit: Thales Alenia Space via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA)
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