Halo Networks

HALO NETWORKS

A . Krishna C haitanya

EC E ¾

k _c_arikatla@yahoo.co.in

M . R . Bharath

EC E ¾

bharath_mosur@yahoo.co.in

CVR COLLEGE OF ENGINEERING

MANGALPALLY,IBRAHIMPATNAM

ABSTRACT

The HALO networks is a universal wireless communication networks that can be used effectively
world wide on a city-by city basis covering a large area and its surrounding remote areas. Angel
Technology C orporation and its partners were the pioneers of broadband wireless millimeter
wavelength (MMW) services from piloted high-altitude, long-operation (HALO) aircraft.

The HALO Network uses a data communications hub aboard a specially designed High Altitude
Long Operation ("HALO") aircraft, flying at altitudes high above commercial air traffic and adverse
weather, to provide customers with access to broadband services, regardless of their location.
Each aircraft, flying for 8 hours at a time at 51km height will have 1 ton of communications
equipment on-board.

By utilizing licensed terrestrial spectrum, adapting and integrating millimeter wave radio
technologies, packet switches, broadband data networking components, and by exploiting the
geometric advantages offered by a "very tall tower," the HALO Network will be able to provide
data rates in the multi-megabit per second.

Subscribers to the network will be able to exchange video, high-resolution images, and large data
files among one another. Information addressed to non-subscribers or to recipients beyond the
region served by the HALO Network will be routed through a dedicated HALO Gateway connected
to the public switched networks, or via business premise equipment ("BPE") owned and operated
by service providers who are connected to the public networks. (The public networks are
operated by long-distance providers and Wide Area Network operators.)

Activation of the service will be as easy as typical consumer electronics. The customer will install
either a standards-based BPE or customer premise equipment ("C PE") and a small externally
mounted auto-tracking antenna.

Our talk will present the architecture and explains the concept of operations of the HALO Network.

Introduction

Angel Technologies C orporation and its partners (Deskin Research Group, Endgate C orporation,
Raytheon Systems C ompany, and Wyman Gordon C orporation) have committed significant
resources to date to pioneering broadband wireless millimeter wavelength (MMW) services from
piloted high-altitude, long-operation (HALO) aircraft.

The HALO Network will be a "universal" wireless communications network to be deployed

worldwide, on a city-by-city basis. The HALO Network will offer ubiquitous access to subscribers
within the "super metropolitan area," and its neighboring remote areas and will enable individual
consumers, businesses, institutions to send and receive data at multi-megabit per second rates.

The HALO airplane will be the central node of a wireless broadband communications network with
a star topology, the HALO Network, whose initial capacity will be on the scale of 10 Gbps, with a
growth potential beyond 100 Gbps. The packet-switched network will be designed to offer bit rates
to each subscriber in the multimegabit-per-second.

Design Aspects

The HALO/Proteus airplane has been specially

designed to carry the hub of the HALO Network. High-Altitude Long Operation (HALO) aircraft
present a new layer in the hierarchy of wireless communications -- a 10-mile tall tower in the
stratosphere above rain showers and below meteor showers (i.e., high above terrestrial towers
and well below satellite constellations). The aircraft will fly above commercial airline traffic, at
altitudes higher than 51,000 feet with a typical diameter of eight nautical miles. In the Fig: 1

stratosphere, the airplane can carry a weight of approximately one ton.

The airplane's fuselage can house switching circuitry and fast digital network functions. A MMW
antenna array and its related components will be located in a pod suspended below the aircraft
fuselage. The antenna array will produce many beams -- typically, more than 100. Broadband
channels to subscribers in adjacent beams will be separated in frequency. For the case of aircraft-
fixed beams, the beams will traverse over a user location, while the airplane maintains stationary
overhead, and the virtual path will be changed to accomplish the beam-to-beam handoff.

Fig: 2

Fig: 3

Operation

For each city to be served, a fleet of three aircraft will be operated in shifts to achieve around-
the-clock service. Flight operational tactics will be steadily evolved to achieve high availability of
the node in the stratosphere. The HALO aircraft will be operated in shifts from regional airports.
While on the ground, the network equipment aboard the aircraft will be assessed, maintained and
upgraded on a routine basis to ensure optimal performance. The operating plan specifies regular
equipment upgrades in order to leverage technology advances for yielding lower cost and weight
and for providing increased performance. The airplane is essentially an equipment bus from which
commercial wireless services will be offered. A fleet of three aircraft will be cycled in shifts to
achieve continuous service. Each shift on station will have an average duration of approximately
eight hours.

Fig: 4

The look angle, defined to be the angle subtended between the local horizon and the airplane with
the user terminal at the vertex, will be greater than a minimum value of 20 degrees. (The
minimum look angle (MLA) for a given user terminal along the perimeter of the service footprint is
defined to occur whenever the airplane achieves the longest slant range from that terminal while
flying within the designated airspace.) Under these assumptions, the signal footprint will cover an
area of approximately 2,000 to 3,000 square miles, large enough to encompass a typical city and
its neighboring communities. Such a high value for the MLA was chosen to ensure a line-of-sight
connection to nearly every rooftop in the signal footprint and to ensure high availability during
heavy rainfall for most of the major cities especially for broadband data rates above 20 GHz.

By selecting MMW frequencies, a broadband network of high capacity can be realized. Small
antenna apertures on the scale of one foot will provide narrow beam widths, and thus the user
terminals can be compact yet offer high gain. The airborne antenna array can be configured to
project a pattern of many cells numbering from 100 to more than 1,000. Each cell on the ground
will cover an area of a few square miles to several tens of square miles. A variety of spectrum re-
use plans can be selected to cover the signal footprint with patterns of cells. For example, each
cell can use one of four frequency sub-bands, and a fifth sub-band can be used for gateways
(connections to the public network or to provide wideband links to dedicated users). By reusing
the spectral bandwidth, a total network capacity in the range of 10 Gbps to 100 Gbps appears
feasible.

The HALO Network Concept

Many types of organizations -- schools, hospitals, doctors' offices, and small to medium-size
businesses -- around the world will benefit from the low pricing of broadband services provided by
the HALO Network. Standard broadband protocols such as ATM and SONET will be adopted to
interface the HALO Network as seamlessly as possible. The gateway to the HALO Network will
provide access to the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) and to the Internet backbone for
such services as the World Wide Web and electronic commerce. The gateway will provide to
information content providers a network-wide access to a large population of subscribers.

Fig: 5

Service Attributes

Various classes of service can be provided to subscribers sharing the bandwidth of a given beam,
for example, 1 to 10 Mbps peak data rates to small businesses, and 10 to 25 Mbps peak data
rates to business users with larger bandwidth appetites. Because each link can be serviced
according to "bandwidth on demand," the bandwidth available in a beam can be shared between
sessions concurrently active within that beam. While the average data rate may be low for a
given user, the instantaneous rate can be grown to a specified upper bound according to demand.
A dedicated beam service can also be provided to those subscribers requiring 25-155 Mbp

The HALO Network Key Attributes

• Subscriber Terminals : Easy-to-install, standards-based, millimeter wave C ustomer Premise

Equipment ("C PE") and Business Premise Equipment ("BPE") with auto-tracking high-gain
antenna.

l High Signal Quality and Availability : At frequencies above 20 GHz, where wireless
broadband services are being licensed, high losses of signals are caused by ground
terrain, foliage and rain. The high viewing angles to HALO aircraft (20 degrees or greater)
assure communications signal paths free of absorbing objects. The combination of a large
aperture and high signal power utilized by the HALO Network allows service availability in
regions with high rainfall rates.
l Rapid Build out : A HALO Network can be put into operation within weeks. Upon Network
activation, Angel provides service to the full super metropolitan area.
l Flexible System Architecture : The network hub can be readily altered to better serve
market needs and to offer higher data rates to subscribers as spectrum becomes
available.
l Low C ost : Negligible ground infrastructure, coupled with a large footprint and multi-
megabit-per-second data rates make broadband services offered by the HALO Network
extremely competitive on a $/bit/square mile basis.
l C onsumer Service : Broadband on demand ("BBOD") to the home. Typically 1 - 5 Mbps
(symmetric service). Services include low-cost Internet, video on demand, tele-
commuting, and 2-way video conferencing.
l Business Service : Switched and dedicated BBOD to business. Typically 5 to 12.5 Mbps
(symmetric service). Services include Internet access, online sales, inventory, intranets,
enterprise networks, extended LANs, offsite training, 2-way video conferencing, and access
to terrestrial millimeter wave networks.
l HALO Network C overage Area : Unique antenna provides ubiquitous coverage throughout
a circular footprint 50 to 75 miles in diameter with high availability.
l Hours of Service : Around-the-clock.
l Initial Network C apacity : Nearly 5,000 simultaneous, two-way, DS1-equivalent links in the
first network. This capacity may be grown ten-fold over a period of several years following
activation of the first network.

A pplications

l Last-mile, high data rate services without requiring large setup costs
l Two-way multimedia, video, data sound
l Provide low-cost connectivity to Internet users and service providers
l Standard broadband and PSTN interfaces
l Interconnection of HALO Networks, including communication to satellites

Conclusion

C ontrasted to terrestrial broadband networks, the HALO Network offers ubiquitous, anyone-to-
anyone, broadband linkages throughout the footprint. All subscribers within the service area will
have full access to the network on the first day it is activated.

Unlike global satellite systems which necessitate an all-or-nothing deployment and financing,
Angel's broadband services can be introduced and financed incrementally on a city-by-city basis.
Finally, satellites must operate for much of their life with aging components and have only a
modest ability to alter their orbits. The modular design of the HALO Network permits Angel to
routinely upgrade the network elements in pace with innovations emerging from the
telecommunications, computer and data communications industries. HALO Networks can be
introduced to highly promising markets around the world on a selective basis.

The HALO Network will revolutionize wireless communications by expanding coverage to

thousands of square miles and by providing capacity to serve thousands of simultaneous multi-
megabit data exchanges."C ontinuous improvement" is a significant attribute of the HALO Network.
It enables Angel to meet the increasing expectations of present customers, and to open new
markets requiring lesser capability by re-assigning earlier-generation hubs.

REFERENC ES :

• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HALO

• http://users.ece.gatech.edu/~ana/Halo/

• http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/0,,sid9_gci213991,00.html

• Gigahertz and Terahertz Technologies for Broadband C ommunications (Satellite

C ommunications) by Terry Edwards

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