HAPS as a Hypercell: Enabling Coverage and Capacity Carrier Shutdown in Cellular Networks

2026-07-07

AI Summary

This study addresses the challenge of high energy consumption and the difficulty of implementing energy-saving base station shutdowns in dense urban cellular networks. To overcome this, the authors propose leveraging High-Altitude Platform Stations (HAPS) to form a “Hypercell” that replaces the coverage of multiple terrestrial macrocells, thereby enabling coordinated shutdown of both coverage-layer and capacity-layer base stations for network-wide energy savings. Innovatively repositioning HAPS from its conventional role in non-terrestrial networks (NTN) as a mere coverage extender to an enabler of joint coverage-and-capacity shutdown, the work introduces two HAPS–Hypercell pairing architectures to support distributed carrier shutdown mechanisms. Evaluations based on 3GPP-compliant modeling and realistic channel simulations demonstrate substantial reductions in network power consumption while also revealing limitations of direct HAPS integration, offering critical insights for future green communication strategies.

Abstract

Energy consumption remains a dominant operational challenge for current and future cellular systems, especially in dense urban deployments. This paper investigates a novel role for non terrestrial network (NTN) high-altitude platform station (HAPS) as an enabler of energy-efficient operation rather than only coverage extension. We define the HAPS-Hypercell as a wide-area non-terrestrial layer that can assume the coverage role of multiple terrestrial macro-cells, enabling, for the first time, the shutdown of both capacity and coverage macro-cells. We develop a comprehensive third generation partnership project (3GPP)-compliant system model, along with two HAPS-Hypercell pairing architectures that capture the interplay among multiple layers, realistic channel conditions, and distributed carrier shutdown (CS) mechanisms. Our results show that the HAPS-Hypercell can effectively reduce overall network power consumption. We then identify key limitations of a straightforward HAPS integration, laying the groundwork for future optimization and providing key insights for next-generation CS operations.

Problem

• energy consumption
• cellular networks
• carrier shutdown
• HAPS
• coverage and capacity

Innovation

• HAPS-Hypercell
• carrier shutdown
• energy efficiency
• non-terrestrial networks
• 3GPP-compliant modeling