Handover Analysis for Yaw-Shifted High-Altitude Platforms

Abstract

Abstract-High-Altitude Platforms (HAP) is an emerging technology for mobile broadband communications and is capable of providing many advantages compared to conventional terrestrial and satellite systems. On the other hand, positional instabilities of HAP affect the system performance greatly. In this paper, a main problem concerning the rotation motion or yaw-shift of HAP is described, analyzed, and its impact on the handover of cellular systems is also investigated. The total handover due to both user mobility and platform rotational positional instability is discussed and determined. An expression for the number of calls subjected to handover is deduced where it will be a function of users' density and their distribution in the cell, platform angular shift due to rotation, cell geometry, and number of active calling users. The analysis of this number shows the serious effects of the yaw-shift instability on the system performance.