In this paper, cellular communications from Stratospheric platforms (SPs) is studied, and the coverage footprint analysis and design is demonstrated. In the analysis, two coverage schemes are introduced; flat-earth and real-earth models and cell footprint are determined in each case. The flat-earth provides simple footprint equations describing the cell dimensions especially for the cells of higher elevation angles while more accurate coverage equations, which well determine the geometry of the cells of lower elevation angles, can be obtained from the real-earth scheme. The design of a cellular system using the proposed coverage models is then introduced through a procedure that determines the cells locations and dimensions on the ground according to the teletraffic information. The procedure takes into considerations the cell broadening when going outwardly from the central cell to the outer lower elevation cells and constructs a cellular layout that has the most proper cells overlap and uniform coverage edges, which helps the linking between different SPs coverage areas.
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