The 11th International Conference on Telecommunication Systems, Services, and Applications | Lombok-Indonesia, 26-27 October 2017

On the Design and Development of Flying BTS

System using Balloon for Remote Area
Communication
Iskandar, M.A. Wibisono, S. Priatna, T. Juhana, Hendrawan, N. Rachmana
School of Electrical Engineering and Informatics, Bandung Institute of Technology
Jl. Ganesha No.10 Bandung 40132 Indonesia
Email: {iskandar@stei.itb.ac.id}

Abstract—This paper aims at designing and developing an aerial
‘flying platform’ for communication in remote area in which
common telecommunication infrastructures are unavailable or
not economically viable to be deployed. The base transceiver
station communication devices of the platform consists of
Raspberry Pi, Wi-Fi dongle, 4W amplifier and single element
patch antenna as radiator. All communication devices will be
packed by a container to be placed in a balloon. The balloon is
designed to lift the load so that it is at an altitude of about 70
meters for the experiment. At this stage of our research, the
system testing was done by placing the communication devices at
the 4th floor of Labtek 8 building and measuring the received
signal at surrounding places. From the measurement results, the
maximum range of the ‘flying platform’ coverage is about 300
meters with received signal level of -70 dBm.
Keywords: Balloon, BTS, Raspberry Pi, HAPS, SPF, flying
platform.
I. INTRODUCTION
In recent years, a novel wireless internet access has been
proposed uing a concept of flying object on the stratosphere. It
is called a research and development project being developed
by Google Loon project. It is based on the ballons which are
manuvered by adjucting their altitude operating at altitudes
around 17-22 km above the Earth’s surface [1]-[2]. Its concept
was originally proposed a few years ago by name of High
Altitude Platforms (HAPs) or Stratospheric Platform (SPF) [3].
SPF is designed to have capability of flying for long
endurance on-station, fed only by solar energy, offering the
possibility to play the role of artificial satellites, with the
advantages of being close to earth and more flexible. Such
platforms are attracting increasing interest for a variety of
applications such as delivering of a wide range of
communication services to rural areas lacking in
telecommunications infrastructure (either wired and wireless),
provision of basic emergency communications systems to areas
hit by catastrophes or just supply of broadband
telecommunication services to residential zones, with a relative
low cost, quick deployment and acceptable data rate [4]-[8].
Although the SPF may enjoy many advantages not
possessed by the terrestrial and satellite systems, there are still
unreported matters that have to be proven before the
deployment in real implementation of this system. One of those
matters is the channel characteristic of communication link
between the SPF and mobile users on the ground. This thesis
deals with the channel modeling and characterization as well as
investigation to propagation aspects of communication link for
mobile users using the concept of SPF [9].
In ITU, the terminology of a stratospheric platform (SPF)
or a high altitude platform station (HAPS) is defined as a
station located on an object at an altitude of 20 to 50 km and at
a specified, nominal, fixed point relative to the earth [10]. In
the definition, it has not been mentioned yet if the object is
manned or unmanned or even how is it powered. Thus, several
countries are now proposing several alternative technologies
for the development of such an object. The SPF is to be
positioned well above commercial airplane at an altitude that is
high enough to provide service to a large footprint, providing
telecommunication, broadcasting and environment observation
services with minimal ground network infrastructure. The
common vision predicts that this system will consist of one or
more quasi-stationary SPF as depicted in Figure 1. Each
platform provides communication with several ground stations
and with numerous mobile and fixed subscriber stations. Each
platform will be equipped with a multi-beam array antenna,
which capable of projecting numerous spot beams within its
potential coverage area. Moreover, the platforms will inter-
connected among themselves, 8 Backhaul to fiber network
Coverage Minimum elevation angle SPF Inter-platform link
Mobile user Fixed user and with other networks, such as
terrestrial, satellite, public and private [11]. The system concept
of this new communication infrastructure is global in nature,
but national or regional in service provision.
Figure 1. SPF basic configuration.

978-1-5386-3546-9/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE


Figure 2. Block diagram of the system.
One of the focus areas of the study within the national
strategic development policy is the focus area of information
and communication technology and set forth in the research
agenda national (ARN) 2015-2019. Therefore the ministry of
communications and informatics is a directly related
institution as well as active role in encouraging research and
development activities in the field of technology and
information. the research we will do is one part (theme) of
focus areas of telecommunications and information. one of the
national problems in the field of telecommunications which
has not been resolved in indonesia as an archipelagic country
is concerned with connectedness users in remote areas (rural)
and or connectedness of a communications region in the event
of a natural disaster. communication or user connectivity
inside network is an important requirement. even if it is
associated with an economic potential business actor or
economy of a region, it can be a catalyst or accelerator the
achievement of economic development.
II. PROPOSED BALLON AND ITS ARCHITECTURE
Balloon rises or falls actually follow the laws of Archimedes.
That is: "the buoyant force received by an object floating on a
fluid is equal to the weight of the fluid it displaces." The basic
formula for the buoyant force is expressed as,
Fa = ρ u Vbu g (1)
where Fa is buoyant force, ρu is the density of air, Vbu is the
volume of air being removed, and g is gravitation.
This principle also explains the phenomenon of steel
vessels whose weight is so heavy, but capable of floating in
the sea. If more and more people are boarding the ship, the
ship will sink deeper into the water. The vessel also displaces
more water until the weight of the removed water equals the
weight of the vessel including its contents. Balloons use the
same principle. It's just that, because we want balloons to rise
in the air and float at certain altitudes, then what is done is to
fill the balloon so that the weight of the air that is transferred
is heavier than the weight of the balloon. Until then reach the
Helium ballon
Air bag
Air Regulator
Parachutes
Pay load
Figure 3. Designed ballons.
desired height point. To achieve this, the chemical principle
teaches us about filling balloons with gases whose molecular
mass is less than the average mass in the air or by hot gases.
Not all gases meet that requirement, especially if there are
price and safety considerations. Some of these are Hydrogen
gas (H2) and Helium (H).
The force that works on the balloon is,
Ftot = FA + FH + FB + FU + FPL + FCH (2)
where Ftot is Total force that works on ballon, FA is The
buoyancy force is due to the air mass being removed, FH is
Helium weight, FB is Ballon weight, FU is air weight plus air
bag plus balast system, FPL is weight load / payload to be
taken, FCH is Parachute weight.
In order for the balloon to lift its own weight, the weight of
the ballast, the weight of the load and the weight of the
parachute, the amount of Helium gas that must be filled into
the balloon should be sufficient to allow the volume of
balloons generated to lift all the heavy components present.
Whenever it is assumed that the weight of the other
components is constant, only the ballast can be adjusted by
weight, since the ballast is an air bag system in which air can
be filled or blown out of the air bag. The principle works, if
the HIPS will move the height to a higher air should be
removed from the air bag, whereas on the contrary if it will
move the height to the lower, the air is pumped into the air
pocket. Thus the ballast should consist of air bags,
compressor, and air regulator. In Figure 3, Airbags are pockets
that serve to carry air. The air here serves as a weight, where
the weights can be set by weight plus or subtracted.
Compressor serves to increase/reduce air in the pocket by
blowing air to/from the air bag. Air Regulator: equipment that

Figure 4. Patch antenna design (dimensions in mm).
Figure 5. Simulation result of return loss vs. frequency of patch antenna.
will arrange charging or exhaust air. Consists of a remote
controlled air-conditioning system, which will drain air from
outside the air pocket to the air bag or vice versa.
IV. HARDWARE IMPLEMENTATION
The fundamental idea of this research is the design of the rides
(HAPS) using a controlled air balloon as a communications
infrastructure to complement Existing access technologies
such as BTS/fiber optic/satellite. This research is very
strategic done to respond to the incessant promotion of Goole
Loon that offers a vehicle for leased to the Government of
Indonesia or the network operator as a replacement access
point BTS/NodeB. The successful development of
HAPS/balloon technology will be very helpful both the
Government and remote users.The research that will be
conducted is to build and develop a system using the vehicle
Figure 6. Simulation result of the patch antenna radiation pattern.
Figure 7. Hardware implementation of the system.
in the air that can be deployed for telecommunications
infrastructure small scale. The benefits are primarily for
communications infrastructure in rural areas not yet reached
by telecommunication, in disaster-affected areas where
existing communications infrastructure is disconnected, or in
urban areas as complementary to existing infrastructure. The
development of this system involves two main segments: air
segments in the form of vehicles / balloons that can carry
communication devices and ground segments in the form of
computers or smart phones as users. In the first year of the
study, aircraft (balloons) will be designed to be able to lift the
payload (payload) of communication and batteries / solar
panels to supply power to the device. In the second year will
be design more than one vehicle (balloon air) so that there can
be inter-vehicle communication to increase coverage or signal
coverage. The third year will be integration
this air vehicle system with existing systems such as
interconnection with cellular networks through openBTS.
 Figure 8. System Testing. Figure 9. Maps of the measurement results at ITB.

TABLE 1. MEASUREMENT RESULTS OF RECEIVED SIGNAL LEVEL AT SEVERAL Telematics Laboratory at the 4th floor of Labtek 8 building
PLACES IN ITB.
with height of about 16 meters from the ground. The picture of
the system testing is shown in Fig. 7. The antenna was placed
Received
Horizontal LOS
signal outside window and directed to the south. The received signal
No Location distance distance was measured at several places around Labtek 8 bulding. The
level
(m) (m)
(dBm) measurement results is shown in Table 1. From Table 1 above,
Labtek 5 Parking the maximum range of the system is about 300 meters (at east
1 126 126,89 -66
Lot
West CC Parking
side of Doping Lab) with received signal level of -70dBm.
2 70 71,59 -58 The map of the places where the system testing was done is
Lot
3 Basketball Court 120 121,66 -70 shown in Fig. 6.
4 West Hall 200 201,00 -60
5
West Hall
180 181,11 -68 VI. CONCLUSION
Parking Lot
6 West Hall Yard 75 76,49 -40 The design and development of the base transceiver station
7 East CC Yard 65 66,71 -66 for flying BTS system using balloon has been presented. The
8
Labtek 8 Parking
20 25,00 -49
system design consists of Raspberry Pi as the web server, Wi-
Lot Fi dongle as access point, 4W 2.4GHz amplifier for
9 II Road Side 38 40,85 -54 amplifying signal level and extending the range, and 2.4GHz
10 East CC Yard 45 47,43 -66
patch antenna as the radiator. The patch antenna is designed
11 Lapangan Cinta 90 92,20 -72
on a FR4 dielectric substrate with thickness of 1.6mm, and the
12 SAPPK 110 111,02 -64
dimension of the patch antenna is 40mm x 50mm. From the
Dept. of
13 Environmental 80 81,39 -65 system testing results, the maximum range of the transceiver
Engineering system is about 300 meters with received signal level of -
14
West Side of
230 230,49 -60 70dBm.
Doping Lab
East Side of
15
Doping Lab
300 300,37 -70 REFERENCES
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[2] https://x.company/loon/.
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V. SYSTEM TESTING AND RESULT 2160 MHz in Reg. 2," 2000.
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