Airborne broadband communication network

A mobile communication system for wirelessly communication, comprising:

• a plurality of ground based users, and
• a plurality of airborne vehicles, each airborne vehicle servicing a predefined coverage area, each airborne vehicle further comprising:
• a position determining means for generating airborne vehicle position information and position information of the users within the airborne vehicle's coverage area;
• a central processing unit for generating targeting signals according to said generated airborne vehicle and user position information;
• an assigning means for assigning at least one transmit and at least one receive data channel of a predefined transmission scheme to each user, wherein the at least one transmit and receive data channels occur at different time intervals according to a predefined timing protocol;
• a receive directed beam antenna for receiving data according to said generated targeting signals and said assigned at least one receive data channel;
• a switching means for determining a destination user of said received data;
• a transmit directed beam antenna for transmitting said received data to said determined destination user at said assigned transmit data channel according to said generated targeting signals, if the determined destination user is within the coverage area of the airborne vehicle;
• and
• a network antenna for transmitting data to other airborne vehicles, if the determined destination user of received data is located in a coverage area serviced by another airborne vehicle, the network antenna transmitting the received data to the other airborne vehicle which determines the user destination of the data and transmits the data to the user in the other airborne vehicle's coverage area.

An airborne vehicle for transmitting and receiving communication data from a plurality of users within a predefined coverage area, said airborne vehicle further comprising:

• an attitude determining mechanism for generating attitude reference information;
• a position determining means for generating position information of said at least one airborne vehicle relative to each of the plurality of users;
• a central processing unit for generating targeting signals according to said generated attitude reference information and position information;
• an assigning means for assigning at least one transmit and at least one receive data channel of a predefined transmission scheme to each user, wherein data channel transmission and reception occurs at different time intervals of a predefined timing protocol;
• a receive directed beam antenna for receiving data according to said generated targeting signals;
• a switching means for determining the destination of said received data;
• and
• a transmit directed beam antenna for transmitting said received data to said determined destination at said assigned transmit data channel according to said assigned data channels and said generated targeting signals.

A method for wirelessly communicating between a plurality of users by use of an airborne vehicle servicing a coverage area, comprising:

• determining attitude reference information and position information of each user of said plurality of users and of said at least one airborne vehicle relative to each of the plurality of users within the coverage area;
• generating targeting signals according to said generated attitude reference information and position information;
• assigning at least one transmit and at least one receive data channel of a predefined transmission scheme to each user, wherein data channel transmission and reception occur at different time intervals of a predefined timing protocol;
• receiving data from each user at said assigned receive data channel according to said generated targeting signals using a first directed beam antenna;
• determining the destination of said received data;
• and
• transmitting said received data to said determined destination at said assigned transmit data channel according to said assigned data channels and said generated targeting signals using a second beam antenna.