Distributed MIMO Schemes for the Future Digital Video Broadcasting

International audienceThis paper studies the application of distributed multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO), i.e. MIMO transmission over several geographically separated but cooperated transmitters, for future TV broadcasting systems. It is first shown that distributed MIMO is promising for the future broadcasting systems from a channel capacity perspective. Several STBCs that can be applied in the distributed MIMO broadcasting scenarios are then discussed. Through performance comparison and complexity analyses with realistic system settings and channel model, it can be concluded that simple STBCs are efficient for low data rate applications, while the sophisticated ones are more suitable to deliver high data rate services

Performance analysis of time slicing in DVB-H

TV is the biggest media and the last one missing from mobile phones. Digital Video Broadcasting for Handhelds (DVB-H) is the latest development from the DVB Project targeting handheld, battery powered devices such as mobile telephones, PDAs(Personal Digital Assistants), etc. Time Division Multiplexing (TDM) is the technology that is usually used in computer and telecommunication systems. Time slicing is one of the characteristics that makes it possible to broadcast high resolution TV programes and fast IP data services to battery powered handheld terminals. This paper discusses the characteristics and advantages of Time slicing algorithm in DVB-H and presents the performance analysis of time slicing in DVB-H through both theoretical analysis and software simulation

Comparative Performance Evaluation of DVB-T using Advance Design System (ADS)

Wireless technologies have brought a rapid growth to digital video broadcasting and as such, has played (and still playing) a vital role in communication systems. Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) has also become so popular in wireless communication systems reason been that it has high spectral efficiency, high throughput, high data capacity and resilience to multipath fading. In addition to these, it is very robust to channel impairment; a quality which has made it preferable and ideal in wireless communication systems. This paper evaluates DVB and compares its performance across three different channels (AWGN, Rayleigh and Ricean) and three different modulation techniques (QPSK, 16 QAM and 64 QAM) is employed. DTV_DVB in 2K Mode carriers is transmitted across AWGN, Rayleigh and Ricean and a comparison of BER performance of the different modulation schemes was considered. At the end of the simulation results and analysis, it was found that AWGN in 16QAM carrier modulation is considered the best modulation technique for DVB_T. Keywords: modulation, channel, digital television, digital video broadcasting

Satellite sound broadcast propagation studies and measurements

Satellite Sound Broadcasting is an attractive satellite application. Before regulatory decisions can be made in 1992, the propagation effects encountered have to be characterized. The Electrical Engineering Research Laboratory has nearly completed a system which will allow amplitude measurements to be made over 10 MHz bandwidths in the 800 to 1800 MHz frequency range. The system uses transmission from a transportable tower, and reception inside buildings or in the shadow of trees or utility poles. The goal is to derive propagation models for use by systems engineers who are about to design satellite broadcast systems. The advance of fiber-optics technology has helped to focus future development of satellite services into areas where satellites are uniquely competitive. One of these preferred satellite applications is the broadcasting of high-quality sound for stationary or mobile reception by listeners using low-cost, consumer-grade receivers. Before such services can be provided, however, the political hurdles of spectrum allocation have to be surmounted and the technical questions of standardization for world-wide compatibility have to be resolved. In order to arrive at an optimal system design, efficient in the use of our scarce spectral resources, affordable both to the broadcaster and the listener, and providing predictable performance, the propagation effects to which the service is subjected have to be characterized. Consequently, the objective of the research project is to make basic propagation measurements for direct Satellite Sound Broadcasting Service (SSBS). The data obtained should allow the development of propagation models to be used by communications engineers designing the operational systems. Such models shall describe the effects of shadowing and multipath propagation on SSBS receivers operating in a specified environment, such as inside commercial or residential buildings of various construction and also in the shadow of trees or utility poles as might be encountered by transporting or mobile listeners

User behaviour modelling for resource management in a hybrid UMTS/DVB-T network

Third generation mobile networks such as UMTS are designed to enhance the deployment of multimedia services providing high data rates and new flexible communication capabilities. However, these systems are interference limited and as such their performance is lowered in the case of a large number of users generating heavy traffic. A solution to this problem is to interconnect the UMTS network to a Digital Video Broadcasting-Terrestrial (DVB-T) network, so that the lack of capacity of UMTS during busy periods can be offset by the high bit rate available on the broadcast network. In order to justify this choice a prediction of the number of subscribers requesting the new multimedia applications designed for this scenario is needed. This paper focuses on the user behaviour modelling for multimedia services in a hybrid UMTS/DVB-T platform. The aim of the paper is to provide operators with a forecast of the demand for new multimedia services showing how they can be subject to a very high number of subscriptions, which UMTS would hardly be able to handle

Digital Audio Broadcast: Modulation, Transmission & Performance Analysis

Radio broadcasting technology has evolved rapidly over the last few years due to ever increasing demands for as high quality sound services with ancillary data transmission in mobile environment. In order to accomplish this, Members of European Broadcasting Union (EBU), the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) and International Telecommunications Union (ITU-R) developed a completely new digital radio broadcasting technology called the Eureka- 147 Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) system which improves the overall broadcasting performance by delivering near CD quality audio and data services in mobile receivers along with efficient use of the available radio frequency spectrum. Digital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) system developed within the Eureka 147 Project is a new digital radio technology for broadcasting radio stations that provides high-quality audio and data services to both fixed and mobile receivers. The system uses COFDM technology that combats the effect of multipath fading & ISI and makes it spectrally more efficient compared with existing AM/FM systems. This project presents the performance analysis of Eureka-147 DAB system. DAB transmission mode-II is implemented first and then extended successfully to other modes. A frame-based processing is used in this study. Performance studies for AWGN, Rayleigh and Rician channels have been conducted. For all studies BER has been used as performance criteria. This project also discusses issues related to system performance using concatenated coding technique, including the outer Block code, the inner convolutional code, outer BCH code and the inner convolutional code

Programming a Distributed System Using Shared Objects

Building the hardware for a high-performance distributed computer system is a lot easier than building its software. The authors describe a model for programming distributed systems based on abstract data types that can be replicated on all machines that need them. Read operations are done locally, without requiring network traffic. Writes can be done using a reliable broadcast algorithm if the hardware supports broadcasting; otherwise, a point-to-point protocol is used. The authors have built such a system based on the Amoeba microkernel, and implemented a language, Orca, on top of it. For Orca applications that have a high ratio of reads to writes, they measure good speedups on a system with 16 processors

Mobile Communication Networks and Digital Television Broadcasting Systems in the Same Frequency Bands – Advanced Co-Existence Scenarios

The increasing demand for wireless multimedia services provided by modern communication systems with stable services is a key feature of advanced markets. On the other hand, these systems can many times operate in a neighboring or in the same frequency bands. Therefore, numerous unwanted co-existence scenarios can occur. The aim of this paper is to summarize our results which were achieved during exploration and measurement of the co-existences between still used and upcoming mobile networks (from GSM to LTE) and digital terrestrial television broadcasting (DVB) systems. For all of these measurements and their evaluation universal measurement testbed has been proposed and used. Results presented in this paper are a significant part of our activities in work package WP5 in the ENIAC JU project “Agile RF Transceivers and Front-Ends for Future Smart Multi-Standard Communications Applications (ARTEMOS)”

Linearisation, error correction coding and equalisation for multi-level modulation schemes

University of Technology, Sydney. Faculty of Engineering.Orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) has been standardised for digital audio broadcasting (DAB), digital video broadcasting (DVB) and wireless local area networks (WLAN). OFDM systems are capable of effectively coping with frequency- selective fading without using complex equalisation structures. The modulation and demodulation processes using fast fourier transform (FFT) and its inverse (IFFT) can be implemented very efficiently. More recently, multicarrier code division multiple access (MC-CDMA) based on the combination of OFDM and conventional CDMA has received growing attention in the field of wireless personal communication and digital multimedia broadcasting. It can cope with channel frequency selectivity due to its own capabilities of overcoming the asynchronous nature of multimedia data traffic and higher capacity over conventional multiple access techniques. On the other hand, multicarrier modulation schemes are based on the transmission of a given set of signals on large numbers of orthogonal subcarriers. Due to the fact that the multicarrier modulated (MCM) signal is a superposition of many amplitude modulated sinusoids, its probability density function is nearly Gaussian. Therefore, the MCM signal is characterised by a very high peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR). As a result of the high PAPR, the MCM signal is severely distorted when a nonlinear high power amplifier (HPA) is employed to obtain sufficient transmitting power. This is very common in most communication systems, and decreases the performance significantly. The simplest way to avoid the nonlinear distortion is substantial output backoff (OBO) operating in the linear region of the HPA. However, because of the high OBO, the peak transmit power has to be decreased. For this reason, many linearisation techniques have been proposed to compensate for the nonlinearity without applying high OBO. The predistortion techniques have been known and studied as one of the most promising means to solve the problem. In this thesis, an improved memory mapping predistortion technique devised to reduce the large computational complexity of a fixed point iterative (FPI) predistorter is proposed, suitable especially for multicarrier modulation schemes. The proposed memory mapping predistortion technique is further extended to compensate for nonlinear distortion with memory caused by a shaping linear filter. The case of varying HPA characteristics is also considered by using an adaptive memory mapping predistorter which updates the lookup table (LUT) and counteracts these variations. Finally, an amplitude memory mapping predistorter is presented to reduce the LUT size. Channel coding techniques have been widely used as an effective solution against channel fading in wireless environments. Amongst these, particular attention has been paid to turbo codes due to their performance being close to the Shannon limit. In-depth study and evaluation of turbo coding has been carried out for constant envelope signaling systems such as BPSK, QPSK and M-ary PSK. In this thesis, the performance of TTCM-OFDM systems with high-order modulation schemes, e.g. 16-QAM and 64-QAM, is investigated and compared with conventional channel coding schemes such as Reed-Solomon and convolutional coding. The analysis is performed in terms of spectral efficiency over a multipath fading channel and in presence of an HPA. Maximum a-priori probability (MAP), soft output Viterbi algorithm (SOVA) and pragmatic algorithms are compared for non-binary turbo decoding with these systems. For this setup, iterative multiuser detection in TTCM/MC-CDMA systems with M-QAM is introduced and investigated, adopting a set of random codes to decrease the PAPR. As another application of TTCM, the performance of multicode CDMA systems with TTCM for outer coding over multipath fading channels is investigated