Zephyr is a fixed-wing high-altitude long-duration unmanned aerial vehicle that can serve as a high-altitude platform station.
Tokyo, March 16(reporter Li Yang)(reporter) recently, Japan Telecom and its joint venture company Space Compass jointly announced that, they completed LTE (quasi-4g) data communications between high-altitude platform stations (Haps) and smartphones on the ground. The experiment, the first of its kind in the world, was conducted in a Kenyan Laikipia County in February 2025. In the experiment, radio waves from an LTE base station on the ground were relayed by HAPS to a smartphone on the ground, confirming a data rate of more than 4.66 megabytes per second, stable communication coverage from HAPS aircraft to ground fixed points was achieved.
Haps, also known as a“Flying base station”, is an unmanned aircraft that can stay aloft for a long time at an altitude of about 20,000 meters. It operates mainly in the stratosphere and flies at an altitude of 18 to 25 kilometers, much higher than passenger aircraft and weather systems, it is considered to be an important part of the future communications infrastructure.
HAPS can be powered by solar energy or fuel cells without the need for petrol. The HAPS aircraft used in this experiment is a small fixed airfoil HAPS“Zephyr” manufactured and operated by Aalto Haps. Developed by Airbus Europe and the U.S. Army, Zephyr set a record in 2022 for the longest stay in the air by a drone, lasting 64 days, and is known for its efficient solar-powered system and lightweight design. This means that the future HAPS can be used as“Air base station”, seamless connection to the ground communication network.
Compared with the traditional ground base station and Leo satellite communication system, HAPS has the advantages of wide coverage, low deployment cost and high flexibility, which is especially suitable for remote areas and marine areas that are difficult to be covered by ground base stations, and post-disaster base station damage emergency communication scenarios.