Measurement of Human Body Blockage in HAPS Communications with Consideration of Elevation Angle

A High-Altitude Platform Station (HAPS), which provides communications services from an altitude of 20 km via an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) such as a balloon, airship, or other aircraft, is attracting much attention as a new mobile communications platform for an ultra-wide coverage area and disaster-resilient networks. A HAPS can provide mobile communications services directly to smartphones, which are commonly used in terrestrial mobile communications networks with Fourth Generation Long Term Evolution (4G LTE), and in the near future, Fifth Generation New Radio (5G NR). In order to design efficient cell configurations for mobile communications in HAPS, we need a radio wave propagation model that takes into consideration the terrain, vegetation, urban areas, suburban areas, building entry loss, etc. Also to offer mobile communications services directly to smartphones, human body blockage characteristics with high elevation angles is required. In this paper, we use a human phantom to measure the human body blockage characteristics at high elevation angles and clarify human body blockage loss on line of sight links. Further we also consider the human body blockage loss in non-line of sight links.