Direction-of-Arrival Estimation for Stratospheric Platforms Mobile Stations

This paper presents a new approach for localizing mobile phone users using the promising technique of stratospheric platform (SP) flying at altitudes 17-22 km high and a suitable Direction-of- Arrival technique (DOA). The proposed technique provides information about accurate locations for mobile stations - through high resolution DOA technique - which is very important for traffic control and rescue operations at emergency situations. The DOA estimation in this technique defines the user location using MUSIC algorithm which provides good accuracy comparable to the Global Positioning System (GPS) techniques but without the need for GPS receivers. Several scenarios for users' locations determination are tested and examined to define the robustness of the proposed technique.