Flat-Top Ring-Shaped Cell Design for High-Altitude Platform Communications

Abstract

In this paper, a new design for ring-shaped cells is introduced where to improve the power distribution and carrier-to-interference ratio (CIR) over the cell area. The designed cell has flat-top radiation pattern with minimal ripples in the service area while the out-of-cell area has lower radiation levels. The new design utilizes two weighting functions applied to a vertical linear array; the first is responsible for the flat-top design and the second smoothes the pattern and reduces the sidelobe levels. The resulted power pattern has a uniform distribution over the cell stripe with as small as 0.25 dB ripples and a uniform CIR values greater than 43 dB within the cells which reduces the burden of power control and increases the immunity to propagation problems.