Performance Analysis of Tri-Sector Reflector Antennas for HAPS-Based Cellular Networks

Abstract

The increasing demand for ubiquitous, highcapacity mobile connectivity has driven cellular systems to explore beyond-terrestrial deployments. In this paper, we present a system-level performance evaluation of fifth-generation (5G) non-terrestrial network (NTN) enabled by high-altitude platform station (HAPS)-based base stations (BSs) equipped with tri-sectoral reflector antennas against fourth-generation (4G) terrestrial network (TN) and 5G TN deployments in a multicell dense urban environment. Using the simulation results comprising the average effective downlink signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio (SINR) and the average user throughput, along with the subsequent interference analysis, we demonstrate that the reflector-based HAPS architecture is primarily constrained by inter-cell interference, while the combination of reflector configuration and deployment altitude represents a key design parameter.