Resisting Rainfall Effect by Adaptive Modulation in High AItitude platform

Abstract

High Altitude Platform Stations (HAPs) are communication facilities situated at an altitude of 17 to 20 km and at a specified fixed point relative to the Earth. They are mostly solar-powered, unmanned, and remotely operated. 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, digital TV etc. Rainfall poses a serious issue to HAP since due to its position rainfall creates the maximum attenuation scenario and causes a decrease in the carrier to noise ratio. In this thesis the modulation technique will be adapted according to the carrier to noise ratio as a proposed solution to rain attenuation problem. A graphical User Interface was designed using MATLAB to provide the best modulation technique that offers the highest possible data rate with a minimum BER having different rain rates. A case study was carried out in two cities-Khartoum and Juba-to suggest which of them is appropriate to implement HAP in.