  High altitude platform (HAP) drones can provide broadband wireless
connectivity to ground users in rural areas by establishing line-of-sight (LoS)
links and exploiting effective beamforming techniques. However, at high
altitudes, acquiring the channel state information (CSI) for HAPs, which is a
key component to perform beamforming, is challenging. In this paper, by
exploiting an interference alignment (IA) technique, a novel method for
achieving the maximum sum-rate in HAP-based communications without CSI is
proposed. In particular, to realize IA, a multiple-antenna tethered balloon is
used as a relay between multiple HAP drones and ground stations (GSs). Here, a
multiple-input multiple-output X network system is considered. The capacity of
the considered M*N X network with a tethered balloon relay is derived in
closed-form. Simulation results corroborate the theoretical findings and show
that the proposed approach yields the maximum sum-rate in multiple HAPs-GSs
communications in absence of CSI. The results also show the existence of an
optimal balloon's altitude for which the sum-rate is maximized.
