High Altitude Broadband Is The Platform

For The Future

Posted: July 17th, 2006.

A three-year project led by the University of York, which aims to revolutionise broadband
communications, reaches its climax later this year.

The CAPANINA project, which uses balloons, airships or unmanned solar-powered

planes as high-altitude platforms (HAPs) to relay wireless and optical communications, is
due to finish its main research at the end of October.

The consortium behind the project will open York HAP Week, a conference from 23 to 27
October, which will showcase the applications of HAPs, as a springboard for future
development in this new high-tech sector.

The CAPANINA Final Exhibition will open the conference by highlighting the
achievements of the project, which received funding from the EU under its Broadband-
for-All, FP6 programme.

The consortium, drawn from Europe and Japan, has demonstrated how the system could
bring low-cost broadband connections to remote areas and even to high-speed trains. It
promises data rates 2,000 times faster than via a traditional modem and 100 times faster
than today's 'wired' ADSL broadband.

CAPANINA's Principal Scientific Officer Dr David Grace said: "The potential of the
system is huge, with possible applications ranging from communications for disaster
management and homeland security, to environmental monitoring and providing
broadband for developing countries. So far, we have considered a variety of aerial
platforms, including airships, balloons, solar-powered unmanned planes and normal
aeroplanes -- the latter will probably be particularly suited to establish communications
very swiftly in disaster zones."

The final experimental flight will use a US-built Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) and
will take place in Arizona days before the York HAP Week conference at the city's
historic King's Manor.

Following the CAPANINA event, a HAP Application Symposium led by Dr Jorge

Pereira, of the Information Society and Media Directorate-General of the European
Commission, will provide a forum for leading experts to illustrate the potential of HAPs
to opinion formers and telecommunications providers.
Completing the week will be the first HAPCOS Workshop, featuring the work of leading
researchers from around Europe. It will focus on wireless and optical communications
from HAPs, as well as the critically important field of HAP vehicle development.

The Chair of HAPCOS, Tim Tozer, of the University of York's Department of

Electronics, said: "There are a number of projects worldwide that are proving the
technology and we want to convince the telecommunications and the wider community of
its potential. We are particularly keen to attract aerial vehicle providers."

The CAPANINA and HAPCOS activities have helped to forge collaborative links with
more than 25 countries, including many from Europe, as well as Japan, South Korea,
China, Malaysia and USA. They are seeking to develop existing partnerships and forge
new ones, with researchers, entrepreneurs, industry, governments as well as end users