An Overview of the European CAPANINA Project - Broadband for All from High Altitude Platforms

摘要

An overview of CAPANINA, a project funded by the European Commission's 6th Framework Programme is presented. This 3-year project commenced in November 2003 and is developing communications technologies for use with aerial platforms with the aim of delivering communications to users in hard to reach areas and those disadvantaged by geography. The project has 13 partners, including NICT, representing a mix of universities, research institutes and industry. The paper discusses the several broad areas of the project. Possible broadband applications, services and infrastructure for HAPs, along with associated business models are discussed. The project is also undertaking spectrum sharing studies, with emphasis on the use of 31/28 GHz bands within Europe. These studies are expected to be submitted to the ITU Working Party 9B via European countries. The paper also covers the trials associated with the project along and describes the required wireless and free space optical equipment. The first year trial, based on a 300m tethered aerostat platform took place in Pershore UK, with wireless and free space optical applications being tested. Another significant area of the project concerns longer-term research underway into delivering broadband (up to 120Mbit/s) backhaul to high-speed trains travelling up to 300km/h from aerial platforms, enabling integration with on board WLAN access points. Several aspects are being investigated, including selection of the most suitable broadband standard for the backhaul link; characterising the mm-wave propagation channel; modification of radio interface; radio resource management and handoff and network topology. These take into account the antennas being investigated for the HAP and train - mechatronic aperture based and smart-antenna based approaches are being considered.