Fixed Channel Allocation Techniques Exploiting Cell Overlap for High Altitude Platforms

An investigation is performed into the capacity enhancements achievable from various fixed channel allocation techniques exploiting overlap between the cells formed by the antenna beams from a High Altitude Platform (HAP). It is shown that the areas served by more than one cell (overlap areas) benefit from the multiplexing gain and as a result they have lower blocking than the areas served by one cell. A novel technique derived from the Erlang-B distribution is described, which imposes certain restrictions in order to limit the proportion of the channels allocated to the overlap areas and be retained for use in areas with no overlap, in order to maintain a more uniform blocking probability over the coverage area. This technique has significantly improved the capacity of the system and the spectrum efficiency.