An integrated satellite-HAP-terrestrial system architecture: resources allocation and traffic management issues

This paper explains the potential role of an integrated satellite-HAP (high altitude platform)-terrestrial system. A simple and suitable architecture is presented. The proposed architecture consists of three layers: the terrestrial layer, HAP layer and GEO layer. The terrestrial layer's terminals, within the same HAP coverage area, have to use a HAP transponder and HAP master control station (HMCS) to send and receive data amongst themselves. Moreover the HAP gateway stations (HGTW) guarantees communications among users belonging to different HAP coverage areas using the GEO satellite links. Since high quality multimedia application support is a key objective for upcoming communication systems, this paper investigates the issues related to this topic. In order to guarantee an adequate quality of service to these kinds of service requires an efficient resources allocation and traffic management algorithm to be implemented inside the HMCS and HGTW stations.