High Altitude Platforms for Wireless Sensor Network applications

In this paper, we investigate the performance of using high altitude platforms (HAPs) for low power wireless sensor network (WSN) applications. In our study, HAPs are employed to replace the sink usually deployed on the ground and collect data from sensor nodes. Two scenarios of employing the HAP as the sink in the WSN are established. Multiple sensor nodes are organized in an ad-hoc manner or in a cluster fashion. Due to the advantages of HAP systems, integrating HAPs into WSN can efficiently extend the deployment coverage area of WSN and reduce complexity of the WSN structure. Simulation results show that HAPs can be effectively employed to provide communications for WSNs.