High Altitude Platform-Based Two-Hop Relaying
Emergency Communications Schemes
Li-ping Zhu, Xiaodong Yan
College of Information Engineering
Minzu University of China
Beijing, China
Abstract—In this paper, we investigate schemes of the high
altitude platform (HAP)-based emergency communications
network for delivering emergency calls and multicast and
broadcast services (MBS) in case of large scale disaster in
mountainous area at the early phase. The network we propose is
a two-hop relay system based on IEEE 802.16j standard.
Depending on the different role that the HAP plays in the relay
system, two scenarios of the network, an integrated satellite-
HAP-terrestrial system or an integrated HAP-terrestrial system,
are illustrated respectively. The architecture of the proposed
HAP-based relay networks is described with special emphasis on
the physical (PHY) and medium access control (MAC) aspects of
the 802.16j standard. Appropriate standard options are chosen
and necessary adaptations are recommended considering the
special requirement of delivering emergency communication
services from the HAP.
Keywords-Emergency communications; high altitude platform
(HAP); 802.16j;
I. INTRODUCTION
Emergency wireless communications supporting
multimedia multicast and broadcast services (MBS) is of vital
importance in large scale disasters in order to deliver critical
information to both survivors and rescue teams. Although
many emergency communication schemes have been proposed,
e.g., [1] and [2], most of them apply to small/medium disasters
at response/recovery phase. In addition, few of them deal with
the issue of MBS.
For large scale disasters in the geographically complex hilly
area at early phase, where the regular communication
infrastructure including the base stations (BSs) and fiber
networks is completely destroyed, the issue of reliable and
quick communication is more challenging. In such case, the
recovery of the communication services is not trivial due to
road blocking and power off. BSs deployments at disaster sites
are difficult, facing possible landslides and debris flow at any
time. Satellite communications is considered the best solutions
in this scenario hitherto, e.g., the WISECOM system [3].
However, the long propagation delays in case of geostationary
satellites and the high complexity in case of low-Earth orbit
satellites limit their use. In [4], IEEE 802.16j-based relay
networks are proposed to provide reliable MBS in emergency
communications. However, as MBS were to be provided by the
terrestrial networks, they would lead to high traffic load.
Supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China under grant
60671061.
978-1-4244-3693-4/09/$25.00 ©2009 IEEE
Yi-Sheng Zhu
College of Information Engineering
Dalian Maritime University
Dalian, China
During the recent several years, high altitude platforms
(HAPs), which are airships or aircraft that locate at 17-22 km
above the Earth’s surface, have emerged as prospective
alternatives to satellites for delivering broadband
communication services including MBS to suburban and rural
areas in beyond 3G networks [5], or to users in hard-to-manage
conditions such as high-speed trains [6]. Compared to
satellites, HAPs are much cheaper and more flexible, and their
payloads can be reconfigured according to current needs. The
propagation delay and physical layer adaptation are not the
problems for HAPs. Compared to terrestrial networks, HAPs
enjoy more favorable path loss characteristics. HAPs also
require less terrestrial infrastructure and have wider coverage.
As a result, one HAP instead of dozens of BS is enough for
large scale disasters which can ensure both fast deployment
and low cost. These characteristics make HAPs also very
suitable in emergency situations.
We propose the IEEE 802.16j-based HAP multihop relay
network for emergency communications at early phase of large
scale disaster in mountainous area. Section II explains the
reason why 802.16j standard is selected and describes the basic
of 802.16j. Section III analyses the components of the HAP-
based system. Section IV describes the proposed emergency
communication network schemes. Conclusions are summarized
in Section V.
II. COMMUNICATION STANDARD OF THE PROPOSED
EMERGENCY COMMUNICATION NETWORK
Considering the fact that HAP is required to deliver
broadband wireless services such as MBS and video to fixed,
nomadic or mobile users, and that the length of the HAP-
ground link ranges from a few hundred meters up to more than
20 km, IEEE 802.16 family of standards are perhaps the most
suitable candidates. IEEE 802.16j, the multihop relay
specification for 802.16, is fully compatible with 802.16e-2005
mobile station (MS) and subscriber station, but has new
multiphop relay BS (MR-BS) and relay stations (RSs)
capabilities to enable relay networks to be realized and provide
support for legacy devices [7].
The reasons why we choose 802.16j as the communication
standard of the HAP-based emergency communication system
during early phase of large scale disaster in hilly areas are due
to the following facts. First, 802.16j will provide increased
capacity as well as coverage to coverage holes such as areas in
the shadows of hilly land. Second, 802.16j is recommended to
be used in the early stages of network rollout. Third, RSs can
be more conveniently deployed near the disaster area than the
BS since they don’t require wireline backhaul. Figure 1 shows
the main use scenarios envisaged for 802.16j, in which two
relay modes of operation are defined for RSs: transparent and
nontransparent. T-RS and NT-RS represent transparent and
non-transparent RS respectively. A T-RS is only used to
increase capacity while a NT-RS can be used to expend service
coverage. The radio link between a MR-BS or RS and MS is
the access link, while that between an MR-BS and an RS or
between a pair of RSs is the relay link.
MS
• the HAP communication payload consists of multi-beam light-
MS
• MS
• antennas for gateway links with ground switching stations, and
MR-BS
NT-RS • a very large bank of processors that handle receiving,
MS
• T-RS • multiplexing, switching and transmitting functions [10].
NT-RS • Antenna subsystem is one of the most important factors of
• •
MS • capacity, multi-beam antenna with directive antenna radiation
MS
MS
• Coverage hole •
MS
Capacity enhancement
• NT-RS
Coverage extension
• MS MS access link
• MS
• relay link
Figure 1. Main use scenarios for 802.16j.
When designing the 802.16j-based HAP relay network, we
have to consider those aspects of the standard including the
relay modes of the HAP RS and terrestrial RSs, physical (PHY)
layer and media access control (MAC) layer specifications.
From a MAC perspective, there are two kinds of scheduling
modes: centralized and distributed. A T-RS can only operate in
centralized scheduling modes, relying on the MR-BS to
allocate resources, while a NT-RS can operate in both modes.
In distributed scheduling modes, the link information are
directly sent to an NT-RS so that it can make scheduling
decisions for its subordinate nodes. An NT-RS is also
characterized by security mode which determines whether an
RS can decrypt encrypted packets or not [8]. In distributed
security mode, an NT-RS can decrypt packets, thus it can also
change the packet size. An NT-RS in centralized security mode
does not have the functionality.
Due to a wide variety of options with 802.16j, which of
these options is appropriate and what necessary adaptations
should be made are the issues that we are studying.
III. COMPONENTS OF THE PROPOSED EMERGENCY
COMMUNICATION NETWORK
A HAP-based emergency communication network consists
of sky and ground segments. The sky segment includes mainly
the aerial-vehicles and the onboard payload. The onboard
communication payload and the equipment of ground segment
are all related with the selected IEEE 802.16j standard.
A. Selection of Aerial Vehicles
Among the three types of aerial vehicles that are identified
throughout the evolution of HAPs: unmanned airships with
propulsion systems, unmanned solar-powered aircraft, and
manned aircraft, unmanned aircraft own great advantages over
the other two in emergency scenarios by virtue of their
immediate response time and the expected flight duration [9].
B. Onboard Communication Payload
Onboard payload can integrate both communication and
navigation subsystems. The navigation subsystems can help
locate survivors and lost in case of emergency. Mission
payload of a typical unmanned solar-powered aircraft is
50∼300 kg. The power for mission is about 3 kW [9]. Typically,
weight reflector or phased array antennas, transmit/receive
onboard payload. To facilitate frequency reuse and increase
pattern may be used, which project a number of spot beams
onto ground in a cellular pattern. Camera & gimbal sub-
payload, PC servers and applications software, RF unit and
tele-command and control unit are also the necessary payload
associated with emergency communication systems. In our
schemes, the HAP communications payload utilizes 802.16j
standard and OFDMA technique.
C. Ground Segment
The components of ground segment are determined by the
configurations of the network and the role of the HAP in the
system. For emergency communications, temporary RSs are
required to run on batteries. The legacy 802.16e-2005 end
terminals can be used as the HAP user terminals.
IV. SCHEMES OF THE HAP-BASED EMERGENCY
COMMUNICATION NETWORKS
From the perspective of the role of HAP, system
architecture of the 802.16j-based HAP relay network can be
classified as two scenarios: integrated satellite-HAP-terrestrial
system where HAP acts as an MR-BS and integrated HAP-
terrestrial system where HAP acts as an NT-RS. In both cases,
the system operates in TDD mode.
A. Integrated Satellite-HAP-terrestrial system
• Architecture
The HAP acts as an aerial MR-BS, providing both
emergency call and MBS service for the disaster area, as is
shown in Figure 2. The altitude of the HAP can be calculated
according to the radius of the maximum coverage. Terrestrial
MSs communicate with each other via HAP directly or via RS-
HAP and communicate with outside via satellite or
interplatform link.
• Relay mode
 Assume that temporary coverage can be provided by the In order to reduce the transport delay resulting from waiting for
HAP. Then terrestrial RSs can operate in transparent modes to MR-BS to make scheduling decision, it is better that the HAP
enable capacity increases while enjoying lower complexity. operating in non-transparent modes. As coverage extension can
The network in this configuration is a two-hop relaying system be obtained by the HAP, terrestrial RS only needs to operate in
with separation of control and data. Control traffic transparent mode. However, currently the standard gives little
communicates between HAP and T-RS/MS directly, which can detail on how to support both T-RS and NT-RS in a system
ensure low schedule latency, while downlink/uplink (DL/UL) [11]. Here we consider the topology of a two-hop HAP-based
data is relayed by terrestrial T-RS. relay system in which both aerial and terrestrial RSs operate in
non-transparent modes.
• Frame structure
The frame structures of the MR-BS and T-RS are shown in Satellite
Figure 3, both consisting of a DL subframe and an UL
subframe, in which different zones are defined to facilitate
communications between different parts of the system. Each
subframes includes an access zone followed by two direct relay
HAP
zones. Access zone is dedicated for communication between
MR-BS/T-RS and MS. Relay zone supports communication MR-BS
between MR-BS and T-RS. Normal relay operates in decode-
and-forward mode, while direct relay operates in modulation –
and-forward mode. In the first direct relay zone of DL sub-
frame, T-RS receives data from MR-BS, and in the second
direct relay zone of DL sub-frame, T-RS forwards signal or
data to the served MS. The direct relay zone in UL sub-frame MS
is also similar [11]. Without decoding and re-encoding, T-RS To terrestrial T-RS
operates in direct relay modes can relay data from HAP to network
terrestrial MS within one frame, while T-RS takes a few frames
MS
to relay data using normal relay method. Therefore, this kind of Relay link
T-RS MS
MS T-RS
frame structure is especially suitable for delivering real time
Access link MS
services such as voice from HAP.
• MAC layer specifications Figure 2. HAP as MR-BS.

From the respective of MAC specifications, all the T-RSs

DL subframe TTG UL subframe
should operate in centralized scheduling mode, relying on the
MR-BS to allocate its resources, and resources allocation is transparent
based on a per-connection basis [12]. The connection access zone zone access zone relay zone
identifiers (CIDs) are used to identify the data flow between
ranging ranging
UL-MAP

HAP and MSs. In this scenario, The HAP sends a message to

DL-MAP FCH
Preamble

the terrestrial T-RSs describing the relay link channel Idle/ Rcv Rcv
Tx

MR-BS
characteristics, including the delay information associated with To Tx to MS From From
each packet in either the DL or UL so that T-RS knows in MS T-RS
T-RS/MS
Frequency

which frame each packet should be transmitted. The security

mode of the T-RS must be centralized, in which only the MR-
BS and MS hold the keys to encrypt or decrypt the MAC
protocol data units (PDUs).
Rcv
Synchronization

Rcv Tx to
Rx

Rcv from Tx to MS
From MR-BS T-RS
B. Integrated HAP-terrestrial system MR -BS
MS
Rcv

• Architecture
normal

normal
direct

direct

(normal (direct (direct (normal

relay) relay) relay) relay)
As is shown in Figure 4, the MR-BS is deployed near the
disaster area and aerial and terrestrial RSs are both employed.
The MR-BS can exchange information with control center
station (CCS) and connect with backbone network. The HAP access zone RTG optional TTG access relay zone
acts as an aerial nomadic RS. This arrangement is superior to transparent
deploying many densely packed terrestrial RSs in terms of Time
extending coverage especially in coverage holes or shadowing Tx: transmit RTG: receive/transmit transition gap
area. Terrestrial emergency vehicle may act as mobile RS Rcv: receive TTG: transmit/receive transition gap
(MRS). MSs communicate with MR-BS directly, or via MRS
or HAP. The network is a two-hop relay system. Figure 3. The frame structures of the HAP and terrestrial T-RS.

• Relay mode • Frame structure

 Figure 5 shows the frame structures of the MR-BS and NT-
RS. An NT-RS should transmit preamble, FCH and DL-/UL-
MAP at the same time as the MR-BS is transmitting its control
traffic. The MR-BS also transmits R-FCH and R-MAP to the
NT-RS for scheduling communications between MR-BS and
NT-RS.
• MAC layer specifications
An NT-RS may operate in centralized or distributed
scheduling modes. Since an NT-RS in distributed scheduling
modes has less signal overhead and latency, we choose the
distributed scheduling mode for the HAP and terrestrial NT-RS
and employ the CID-based scheme to forward packets. In this
scenario, the HAP and terrestrial NT-RS have knowledge of
the QoS requirements of each connection and can therefore
make their own scheduling decisions. Furthermore, it is
recommended that HAP and terrestrial NT-RS operate in
distributed security mode so that they can derive keys for the
newly MSs entering their service.
[9] S. Karapantazis and F.-N. Pavlidou. “Broadband communications via
high-altitude platforms: a survey,” IEEE Communications Surveys &
Tutorials, vol. 7, no. 1, pp. 1-30, 2005.
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(HAPS): a review of new infrastructure development for future wireless
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111, Jan. 2009.
Relay link
HAP
NT-RS
Access link
MR-BS

V. CONCLUSIONS MS
CCS
In this paper, IEEE 802.16j-based HAP multihop relay
network schemes are proposed for emergency communications NT-RS
at early phase of large scale disaster in hilly area. Two MS
Backbone MS
scenarios in which HAP plays the role of the MR-BS and RS,
MS MS
respectively, are described with emphasis on the choice of
appropriate relay modes, frame structure and MAC layer
specification including scheduling and security modes. Future
work will concentrate on performance evaluation of proposed Figure 4. HAP as NT-RS
schemes under specified configuration parameters. Frame
structure design for the system including both T-RS and NT-
RS is another interesting issue.
DL subframe TTG UL subframe
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