Coverage Ratio Optimization for HAP
Communications
Dingjie Xu∗ , Xinghui Yi∗ , Zhihang Chen† , Cheng Li∗ , Chaoxian Zhang† , Bin Xia∗
∗ Department of Electronic Engineering, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China
† School of Information Science and Engineering, Tan Kah Kee College, Xiamen, China
Email: {xudingjie1993, Turtle803, lichengg, bxia}@sjtu.edu.cn,
cme13022@stu.xujc.com, zhangcx@xujc.com
Abstract—In this paper, we focus on the efficient deploy-
ment of high altitude platforms (HAPs). As the accuracy of
the channel model highly affects the deployment scheme,
we first propose a geometry-based HAP channel model,
which considers the statistical and geometry properties of
the terrestrial environments comprehensively. Based on the
proposed channel model, we derive the Line-of-Sight (LoS)
transmission probability of air-to-ground communication,
and characterize the path loss analytically. We further pro-
pose an algorithm to maximize the deployment efficiency
in terms of the coverage ratio, i.e., the ratio of the radius
of the HAP to the inter-HAP distance. The accuracy of our
theoretical analysis is validated by simulations.
Index Terms—HAP, geometry-based model, LoS proba-
bility, path loss, optimal deployment.
I. I NTRODUCTION
High Altitude Platform (HAP) technique has attract-
ed increasing attention due to its advantages, such as
free-space-like path loss, short transmission delay, low
manufacturing costs [1]. It is regarded as a potential
supplement to current communication systems [2].
Despite the numerous advantages of deploying HAPs
as flying base stations, several technical challenges,
such as energy limitation, interference management,
demand prompt solutions [3]–[5]. Among these chal-
lenges, multi-HAP deployment is of great significance,
since an efficient deployment can greatly reduce the
energy consumption and expand the coverage. Though
few works are conducted to analyze the multi-HAP
deployment problem, some works related to the efficient
deployment of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) have
been reported [6], [7]. Specifically, in [6], the authors
derive the implicit expression of the path loss for a
single UAV and obtain the optimal altitude for the
maximum coverage. However, HAPs are working at an
altitude far above UAVs, which indicates that adjusting
the altitude has limited impacts on coverage extension.
This work was supported in part by the National Key Research and
Development Program of China under Grant 2016YFE0121100, the
National Nature Science Foundation of China under Grants 61531009
and 61521062, the State Major Science and Technology Special
Projects under Grant 2016ZX03001015, the Chinese National 863
Project under Grant 2015AA01A710.
978-1-5386-3531-5/17/$31.00 
c 2017 IEEE
In [7], the circle packing theory is adopted to determine
the optimal deployment of UAVs such that the total
coverage can be maximized. But this work is based on
the assumption that the decoding threshold is lower than
0 dB. Otherwise, there will be coverage holes on the
ground, and the circle packing theory is not applicable
anymore.
To determine an efficient multi-HAP deployment, it is
necessary to model the characteristics of HAP commu-
nication channel accurately. In [8], [9], the HAP channel
is modeled based on data sampling and data fitting.
Although it provides a high accuracy, the heavy work
of data measurement for different scenarios prevents its
wide application. To avoid the complexity and high-
cost, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU)
proposes a geometrical method to model the air-to-
ground communication [10]. However, the basic assump-
tion that buildings are evenly spaced does not accord
with the real-world environment. Moreover, the impacts
of different environmental parameters on QoS need to
be revealed, since no explicit expressions have been
obtained.
To characterize the air-to-ground communication
channel and determine an optimal deployment scheme,
in this paper,
• We propose a statistical geometry-based channel
model, which is characterized by statistical proper-
ties, including the mean and variance of the building
density and the building height. Contrary to the
assumption that buildings are evenly spaced [6],
[10], in this paper, buildings are assumed to be
uniformly distributed at a certain density.
• Based on the channel model, we obtain the Line-
of-Sight (LoS) transmission probability of air-to-
ground communication, and derive the path loss for
deployment scheme design.
• We propose an algorithm to determine the optimal
multi-HAP deployment to maximize the coverage
ratio, i.e., the ratio of the radius of the HAP to the
inter-HAP distance, such that the coverage efficien-
cy can be optimized. Simulations are conducted to
verify the superiority of the proposed scheme.
 ,W ,W
Z ,Ć
ŚсϮϬŬŵ
Ě
h
Fig. 1. Illustration of Air-to-Ground communication.
II. HAP C HANNEL M ODELING
The air-to-ground communication is illustrated in
Fig.1. Considering the complex terrestrial environment,
buildings or some other obstructions may block the line-
of-sight (LoS) between the HAP and the terrestrial user
equipment (UE), which causes a significant drop in the
signal quality. Therefore, channel characteristics such as
path loss should be modeled for LoS and NLoS cases
respectively, which necessitates reliable methods for the
LoS probability prediction.
Consider the HAP channel with the aerial view shown
in Fig.2. We construct a cartesian coordinate system,
where the UE locates at the original point O, and the
projection of HAP H on the ground plane, i.e., the
x − y plane, is denoted as H  , with the coordinate
(xh , yh ) = ( zhtanθ
cosϕ zh sinϕ
, tanθ ), where zh is the height of
the HAP. Buildings are assumed to be uniformly located
in a large enough region S surrounding the UE. Some
basic environmental parameters are defined as below.
• ϕ: The azimuth angle of the user antenna, i.e., the
−−→
angle between the vector OH  and x-axis on the
x-y plane.
• θ: The elevation angle of the user antenna, i.e., the
−−→ −−→
angle between the vector OH  and OH.
• ρ: The building density, i.e., the average number of
buildings per square kilometer.
• 2w and 2l: The building dimension, i.e., the width
and the length of the buildings respectively.
• h: The building height, which is assumed to follow
the exponential distribution with parameters λ, i.e.,
fh (x) = λe−λx , x > 0.
A. Obstruction Cases
The LoS probability refers to the probability that the
radiation from the transmitter to the receiver along the
geometrically shortest route is not blocked by any ob-
struction. As shown in Fig.2, we can see that obstructions
can only happen in the region surrounded by the dotted
line. The region consists of three parts, i.e., a triangle,
a rectangle and a rhombus, and we will analyze these
three parts one by one.
(1) The rectangular region
LJ
 
 ,W
 
>Ž^
h K ǁ Z džŚ dž
Ͳů
Fig. 2. Regions where the LoS ray might be obstructed.
When a building with coordinate of (xb , yb ) lies in
the rectangular region, the UE will be fully covered
(considering the case that the user uses a mobile phone
in a building). In this case, no LoS exists.
(2) The triangular region
When a building with coordinate of (xb , yb ) lies in the
triangular region, OH’ will intersect with BC. Since the
equation of the line OH’ is y = xyhh x, the coordinate of
the intersection can be derived as ( xyhh (yb − l), yb − l).
When the building height h satisfies the condition
h2 zh2
≥ , (1)
x2h
(yb − l)2 + (yb − l)2 x2h + yh2
yh2
i.e., h ≥ zh (yyhb −l) , the LoS will be obstructed.
(3) The rhombic region
When a building with coordinate of (xb , yb ) lies in
the rhombic region, OH’ may intersect with either AB
or BC. If the intersection is on AB, the coordinate
of the intersection should be (xb − w, xyhh (xb − w))
and similar to (1), the threshold of the building height
for the obstruction can be derived as zh (xxbh−w) . If the
intersection is on BC, the threshold should be zh (yyhb −l) .
B. LoS Probability Derivation
Based on the analysis in Section II-A, we can obtain
the probability that a single building located around UE
obstructs the signals from or to the HAP as (2). The
number of buildings surrounding UE can be calculated
as M = ρS, where ρ is the building density. Then the
LoS probability can be calculated as
0 Ω ρS (a) −ρΩ
PLoS = (1 − PNLoS )M = (1 − ) = e , (3)
S
where step (a) is derived by using substitution of equiv-
alent infinite small, considering S is sufficiently large.
The building height follows the exponential distribu-
tion with parameter λ, so the cumulative density function
is
Fh (x) = 1 − e−λx , (4)
and therefore, we have between U and A is the radius of the coverage denoted
as d. It is obvious that the distance between U and
P{h ≥ x} = 1 − Fh (x) = e−λx . (5)
B  must be greater than or equal to R − d, with the
Combining (2) with (5), we can derive Ω as (6). Since equality holds only when the user lies on the line A B  .
xh  w and substitute xh and yh with zhtanθ
cosϕ
and zhtanθ
sinϕ Therefore, the corresponding LoS probabilities can be
respecively, an approximation of Ω can be written as derived as
√
2 2βd
2lcosϕ 2wsinϕ A
PLoS = e− h ,
Ω̃in = + + 4wl √ (10)
λtanθ
√ λtanθ −
2 2β(R−d)

(b) 2 2wsin(ϕ + )
π (7) B
PLoS =e h ,
≈ 4
+ 4w2 , where ϕ is simplified as ϕ = π
λtanθ 4, and the received signal
where we assume w = l in step (b) without loss of power should be
generality. Pt
Pr,A = ,
In some related researches, only outdoor scenarios A
LFSL ψA
are considered, i.e., the rectangular region mentioned in (11)
Pt
Section II.A can be neglected. In these cases, we have Pr,B = B
,
LFSL ψB
√
2 2wsin(ϕ + π4 ) respectively, where ψ represents the shadow fading,
Ω̃out = , (8)
λtanθ whose typical values are given in [9], and LFSL is the
and the LoS probability becomes free space loss, which can be calculated as
√ √ √
−
2 2ρwsin(ϕ+ π )
4 −
2 2βsin(ϕ+ π )
4  4πfc h2 + d2 2
PLoS = e λtanθ =e tanθ , (9) LFSL =
A
,
ρw c
where β = λis a factor characterizing the surrounding  4πfc h2 + (R − d)2 2
environment. A larger β usually indicates an environ- FSL =
LB ,
c
ment with higher buildings and a larger building density.
III. O PTIMAL M ULTI -HAP D EPLOYMENT Algorithm 1 Optimal Deployment
Suppose that there are N HAPs deployed above a 1: Initialization: h, Pt , fc , β, ψLoS , ψNLoS , N , γ th ;
certain area providing wireless coverage for ground 2: for R = R; R ≤ R; R = R + ΔR do
users. On one hand, if HAPs are densely distributed, 3: for d = R2 ; d ≥ 0; d = d − Δd do
the interference will be significant. On the other hand, if 4: if (13) is satisfied then
HAPs are scattered, users located in the coverage hole 5: Result = R d
;
will not be able to get access to the network. Therefore, 6: Break;
how to deploy the HAPs efficiently becomes a vital issue. 7: end if
We assume that the distance between two adjacent 8: end for
HAPs is R, and all HAPs transmit signal to terrestrial 9: end for
users with a fixed transmission power Pt . The coverage 10: return Result;
of a HAP is defined as the area where the user’s SINR
is greater than the decoding threshold γ th . As shown where fc is the carrier frequency, and c is the speed of
in Fig.1, we take two adjacent HAPs A and B as an light in a vacuum. Based on the analysis above, we can
example, with their projections on the ground denoted derive the SINR of the received signal as
as A and B  respectively. We focus on the user located Pr,A
at the edge of the coverage of HAP A, i.e., the distance SINR = , (12)
σn2 + Pr,B

  yh    xyh (xb +w)+l  

1 xh xh (xb −w)+l zh (xb − w) zh (yb − l)
0 h
PNLoS = P h≥ dyb + P h≥ dyb dxb
S w
yh
xh (xb −w)−l
xh yh
xh (xb −w)+l
yh
 w  xyh (xb +w)+l    w  l
h zh (yb − l) Ω
+ P h≥ dyb dxb + dyb dxb =
−w l y h −w −l S
(2)

2lxh
z
−λ h (x −w)
 x y

h h
z
−λ h (x +w)
z
−λ h (x −w)
 2wy
h
Ω= 1 − e xh h + 2 2 e xh h − e xh h + + 4wl (6)
λzh λ zh λzh
 LoS Probability for Selected Environments Coverage Ratio for Different Environments
100 0.35
Suburban
Urban
90
0.3 Dense Urban
Urban High−Rise
80

0.25
70
LoS Probability [%]

Coverage Ratio
60
0.2

50

0.15
40

30
Urban (ITU)
0.1
Dense Urban (ITU)
20 Urban (Geo)
Dense Urban (Geo) 0.05

10 Urban (Sim)
Dense Urban (Sim)
0 0
0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400
10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80
Elevation Angle of Terrestrial Antenna [ ° ] The Distance between Two HAPs [km]

Fig. 3. Comparison between the geometrical model and the ITU model. Fig. 4. Optimal multi-HAP deployment in different areas.

TABLE I
T YPICAL VALUES OF E NVIRONMENTAL PARAMETERS
Environment ρ (buildings/km2 )
Suburban 7.5 × 10−4
Urban 5 × 10−4
Dense Urban 3 × 10−4
Urban High-Rise 3 × 10−4
* Without loss of generality, we assume that w = l.
where σn2 is the variance of the zero mean additive white
Gaussian noise.
We try to determine the optimal multi-HAP deploy-
ment such that the coverage ratio can be maximized,
and the corresponding optimization problem can be
illustrated as
d Fig.4 depicts the coverage ratio of different de-
max
d,R R (13)
s.t. SINR ≥ γ th .
We propose an iterative algorithm to solve the optimiza-
tion problem as shown in Algorithm 1, where ΔR and
Δd are the searching steps. What should be noticed is
that, when γ th > 0dB, the coverage of HAPs can not
intersect with each other, i.e., there will be coverage
holes, which reveals the limitation of the deployment
based on the packing theory [7].
IV. S IMULATION R ESULTS AND D ISCUSSION
As shown in Fig.3, we simulate the terrestrial envi-
ronment and calculate the LoS probability by statistics.
The theoretical results derived according to the pro-
posed geometrical model match well with the simula-
tion results. It is easy to see that the LoS probability
increases monotonically with the elevation angle of the
user antenna. Besides, the LoS ray is more likely to be
blocked in areas with a larger β, that is, the increase
of the building density, the building width, and the
building height will all result in the decrease of the LoS
probability. In urban area, the LoS probability reaches
60% when the elevation angle is 50◦ , which is equivalent
w/l (m) λ β
to a coverage area with a radius 23.8km. This result
11.55 1/8 0.069 demonstrates the immense potential of HAPs to provide
24.49 1/15 0.184 better communication quality and extensive coverage. In
40.82 1/20 0.245 the figure, we also compare the simulation results with
40.82 1/50 0.612
the LoS probability derived by using the ITU model.
It is obvious that the ITU model’s prediction greatly
deviates from the simulation results, in another word,
it overestimate the LoS probability. The reason lies in
the fact that in the ITU model, buildings are assumed to
be evenly spaced and the cases where UEs are located
close to a building are neglected. Therefore, the proposed
model provides a higher accuracy compared with the
ITU model.
ployment schemes in different environments. The SNR
threshold is set as 10dB, the communication bandwidth
is taken as 10MHz, and the carrier frequency is chosen as
2GHz. Other typical values of environmental parameters
are given in Table I. We can see that as the distance
between two adjacent HAPs increases, the coverage ratio
first increases and then decreases after reaching its peak
value. The reason lies in the fact that as the distance
gets larger, the interference decreases, so the coverage
for each HAP expands. However, when the distance is
large enough, the interference between HAPs can be
neglected and the noise becomes the predominant factor,
i.e., the coverage will not expand anymore even when
the distance increases, so the coverage ratio decreases.
Another thing that can be noticed is that the optimal
coverage ratio decreases as the building density gets
larger, and the coverage for each HAP also decreases.
This is due to the decrease of the LoS probability.
V. C ONCLUSION
Since most existing geometric models are based on
the impractical assumption that buildings are evenly
spaced, in this paper, we first construct a novel statistical
geometry-based model, and analyze the impacts of dif-
ferent environmental parameters on the LoS probability
of air-to-ground communication. The proposed model
provides a higher accuracy compared with the ITU mod-
el. Based on the LoS probability, we further analyze the
path loss, and propose an efficient algorithm to determine
the optimal multi-HAP deployment to maximize the
coverage ratio. Simulation results indicate that we can
achieve a larger coverage ratio in suburban area than in
high-rise area with the same number of HAPs.
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