COMMUNICATIONS PAYLOAD

The HALO™ Network will use an array of narrow beam antennas on the HALO™ Aircraft to
form multiple cells on the ground. Each cell covers a small geographic area, e.g., 4 to 8 square
miles. The wide bandwidths and narrow beamwidths within each beam or cell are achieved by
using MMW frequencies. Small aperture antennas can be used to achieve small cells. For
example, an antenna having a diameter of only one foot can provide a beamwidth of less than
three degrees. One hundred dish antennas can be easily carried by the HALO™ Aircraft to create
one hundred or more cells throughout the service area. If lensed antennas are utilized, wider
beams can be created by combining beams through each lens aperture, and with multiple feeds
behind each lens multiple beams can be formed by each compound lens.
If 850 MHz of spectrum is assumed, then a minimum capacity of one full-duplex OC-1 (51.84
Mbps) channel is available per cell. For example, a single platform reusing 850 MHz of
spectrum in 100 cells would provide the equivalent of two, OC-48 fiber optic rings. Higher
capacities are possible by increasing the number of cells. By using Asynchronous Transfer Mode
(ATM) technology with over-the-air dynamic bandwidth allocation, this capacity can be shared
by multiple users in an efficient manner. An ATM-like packet switch on the HALO™ Aircraft
provides the network switching capability to cross-connect all users within the coverage area as
well as connections to other users through gateways. The elements in the communications
payload are shown below. It consists of MMW transceivers, pilot tone transmitter, high-speed
modems, SONET multiplexers, packet switch hardware and software, and associated ancillary
hardware such as power supplies, processors, etc.
Functional Block Diagram of the Communications Payload
The major design options for antennas in the Communications Payload are to utilize either
platform-fixed beams or earth-fixed beams. For the case of platform-fixed beams, each antenna
would have a fixed field of view. The total field of view for the entire HALO™ Network would
be the sum of these fields of view of the individual antennas. The network could initially have a
small footprint and as demands on the HALO™ services increase, additional antennas could be
added to the Communications Payload. This results in a modular design, readily adaptable for
growth.
Platform-fixed beams are simpler to construct generally, but require the "handoffs" between
beams to be accomplished by the packet switching equipment as the beams "sweep" across the
ground with the movement of the aircraft. However, the cost and performance penalties for
frequently changing the virtual path through the packet switch may be appreciable.
An alternative is to electronically steer the beams so they remain "fixed" on the ground as the
aircraft moves. This results in more electronic and physical complexity for the antennas, but this
may be a good trade-off to make since the burden on the packet switch and its network
management software would be greatly reduced. These trade-offs are still being assessed.
For the case of earth-fixed beams, each antenna would have a wider field of view than the sum of
the beams in that antenna since each beam can be steered in all directions. Each beam could be
capable of steering throughout the HALO™ footprint, or could be assigned a smaller portion. If
there are "gaps" in the required coverage due to such things as rivers, hills, or forests, then the
earth-fixed beams can be steered away from these undesirable coverage zones and more efficient
usage of the antennas might result compared to the case of platform-fixed beams.