disaster monitoring

KAUST research develops HAPS-borne radar for persistent, real-time disaster monitoring

3 min read · Sat, Oct 3 2026

HAPSs radar Sensing disaster monitoring SAR

Researchers at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) have developed a joint trajectory-and-resource optimization framework that enables a high-altitude platform station (HAPS) to carry out synthetic aperture radar (SAR) sensing while carefully managing the limited energy available for flight, radar operation and communication. The team, including Bang Huang, Ki-Hong Park, Xiaowei Pang and Mohamed-Slim Alouini, investigated how solar-powered HAPS aircraft operating in the stratosphere, typically around 20 to 30 kilometers above the ground, could carry SAR payloads to