Identification of the Best Location for High Altitude Platform Station

Abstract

One of the main key issues in the exploitation of HAPS is the rain as the rain attenuation is most dominant at the frequencies above 10 GHz. The effect of rainfall is more severe in tropical regions, which are characterized by heavy rainfall intensity for long periods of the day. This paper provides a method that used to identify the best location of the HAPS stratospheric segment in peninsular Malaysia. The study was done based on ten ground stations that suffer the highest rainfall intensities on the ground. The best locations for the northern and the southern platform were found to be at Sungai Lembing (4.11° N, 102.88° E), and Tanjung Kling (2.23° N, 102.02° E) respectively. The modified ITU-R model was the used to carry out this study