The Radio Data System (RDS) provides a low-rate digital broadcast channel that is specific to the radio station an FM receiver tunes to. While RDS is mainly intended for delivering simple information about the station and current program, we argue that it can be employed to enable a broad range of new applications and enhance existing ones. In this paper, we discuss a number of applications that can be enabled or enhanced by RDS.radio data system.broadcasting, transmission system

Claudiu Dan Bârcă

Cristian Mihai Bârcă

Dumitrescu Sorin

English

Research Papers in Economics

RADIO DATA SYSTEM APPLICATIONS 
 
Claudiu Dan Bârcă
1 
Dumitrescu Sorin
2 
Cristian Mihai Bârcă
3 
 
Abstract 
 
The Radio Data System (RDS) provides a low-rate digital broadcast channel that is 
specific to the radio station an FM receiver tunes to. While RDS is mainly intended for 
delivering simple information about the station and current program, we argue that it can 
be employed to enable a broad range of new applications and enhance existing ones. In 
this paper, we discuss a number of applications that can be enabled or enhanced by RDS. 
 
Keywords: radio data system.broadcasting, transmission system 
 
I. Introduction 
 
The Radio Data System (RDS) is an add-on data service, used by many 87.5 to 108 MHz 
FM radio stations. The purpose of RDS is to increase the system functionality. During the 
development of RDS it was essential to ensure, that the data signal would be compatible 
and inaudible in both Mono and Stereo reception. It was also "designed" so that the data is 
particularly suitable for mobile reception, covering, at least, the Mono service area. The 
system is flexible for a large number of applications and has been left open for future 
features[1]. 
 
II. Rds  Features 
 
RDS concept imposed the following characteristics[2.3] : 
-Alternate Frequency (AF/EON) :avoids that e.g. car drivers have to manually change the 
frequency while driving. If the chosen signal turns weak, the RDS tuner automatically 
switches to an alternative frequency. This works by a list of alternative frequencies, which 
is transmitted via RDS.  
-Traffic Announcement / Traffic Program Indication (TA/TP) :can be used to mark a 
station that offers traffic information (TP) and to indicate if a there is ongoing traffic 
information.An RDS tuner can be set to only unmute audio if there is ongoing traffic 
information (TA). 
-TMC - Traffic Information via Traffic Message Channel :Can be used to forward special 
traffic information. This could be information about traffic jams, which are used by 
navigationsystems for optimized routing. 
-Station name, Program Type, Radio Text (PS/PTY/PTYN/RT) :RDS tuners can display 
the station name (PS) instead of the frequency or display program related information 
(PTY/PTYN).  
                                                             
1 Ph.D. candidate, Romanian American University, Bucharest,Romania 
2 Ph.D. candidate, Electronic Solution SRL, Bucharest,Romania 
3 Student, Polytechnics University, Bucharest,Romania 
  
 
-Specific user data forwarding (TDC) :can be used to forward any transparent data via 
RDS. 
-Radio Paging (RP) - Paging via RDS :RDS offers pager capability. Specific pagers can 
receive individual messages via RP. 
-EWS - Emergency Warning System:RDS offers an Emergency Warning System. Special 
EWS receivers can be alerted in the case of emergencies or disasters. 
This means fast and also cost-efficient warning for the population when dangers like 
tsunami-flood waves, industry accidents with hazardous emissions etc. 
 
III. Position Of The Rds  Signal In The Modulation Spectrum 
 
The lower 15 kHz contain the monophonic audio signal. The stereophonic audio signal is 
placed between 23 and 53 kHz. The RDS data is contained in sidebands at 57 kHz. The 
RDS technology enables data rates of about 1187 bit/s. Fig. 1 shows the signals in the 
frequency domain. 
 
 
 
IV. Rds Groups 
 
RDS data is formatted in groups. There are 16 groups, divided into type A and type B. 
These groups contain different data like PTY or EON data. 
A group is formatted as follows: 
It contains 104 bits and is divided into 4 blocks. 
A block contains 26 bits and is divided into the Information Word and the Check word 
with the Offset . 
The Information Word contains 16 bits and carries data. 
The Check word with the Offset is for error correction and synchronization. 
Fig. 2 shows the coding structure. 
 
 
V. Group Format 
 
The groups are formatted as follows: Block 1 of each group contains the PI code of the station. 
Block 2 contains the following data: 
Group Type Code (identifies the present transmitted group) 
Version Flag (identifies the group as type A or type B) 
TP Flag 
PTY 
5 group individual bits 
Block 3 and 4 contain group specific data. 
Fig. 3 shows the group format. 
 
 
VI. Rds Information For Indication 
 
The main functions according standards, are: 
-Program Service Name (PS) / Scrolling Program Service Name (SPS) :the Program 
Service Name contains max. 8 alphanumeric characters. It can be used to inform the user 
about the station ID. The PS is usually displayed by every RDS enabled tuner. 
-Program Type Name (PTYN):the PTYN can be used for detailed description of the PTY 
by 8 digits. 
 
The Program Type Name is transmitted in the group 10A. 
-Radio Text (RT) :Radio Text offers another opportunity to transmit alphanumeric digits. 
RT offers to transmit long text messages of 64 digits. Additionally RT offers to transmit 
chain messages.Radio Text is transmitted in the groups 2A and 2B. 
-Clock Time and Date (CT) :RDS has the capability to transmit the present time and date. 
The CT is transmitted in the group 4A.RDS control information 
-Program Identification and Extended Country Code (PI und ECC):the Program 
Identification Code is used for the identification of the transmitted content. Every 
program has a specific PI code. It enables the RDS tuner to distinguish between different 
countries and areas with the same program. The PI code is transmitted in every RDS 
group.The Extended Country Code is transmitted in the group 1A. 
-Program Type (PTY):the Program Type is an identification number and should be 
transmitted by every program. The PTY code is transmitted in every RDS group. 
-Traffic Program Identification (TP) :the Traffic Program Identification Flag is used to 
identify stations that offer traffic program. The flag is set if the station automatically sets 
the TA flag on traffic announcements. the TP can be used for automatic station 
searching.The Traffic Program Identification Flag is transmitted in every group.  
 
-Traffic Announcement Identification (TA) :The Traffic Announcement Identification 
Flag is used to indicate an ongoing traffic announcement.The Traffic Announcement Flag 
is transmitted in the groups 0A, 0B and 15B. 
-Music/Speech Switch (M/S) :the Music/Speech switch is used to identify if music or 
speech program is transmitted. The Music/Speech switch is transmitted in the groups 0A, 
0B and 15B. 
-Decoder Identification (DI) and Dynamic PTY Indicator (PTYI) :The Decoder 
Identification identifies different operating modes.The decoder information is transmitted 
in the groups 0A, 0B and 15B. 
-Alternative Frequencies (AF) :Alternative frequency lists are used for sending 
frequencies that transmit the same program.  
 
VII. Radio Data System Applications 
 
There are various development application of  RDS : 
-digital voiced signal transmitting and pager receiving system with RDS: The digital 
voiced signal transmitting and pager receiving system with RDS application receiving is a 
telegraph code simultaneously the same channel. It contains a voiced predictive signal in 
the telegraph code application. When the system receives the voiced predictive signal, it 
can receive a digital voiced signal asynchronously in another channel with RDS. In the 
application, the RDS system can provide voiced signal transmission and be used to 
compensate the disadvantage of regular pager in which can only display literally and 
number information. 
-standard time and date-corrected system : the application is that the radio station 
transmits correct time information and receiver receives the correct time 
-telegraph code broadcasting system of weather:the telegraph code broadcasting system of 
weather application is used to replace the conventional weather broadcasting system such 
as TV or FM stereo system. By transmitting international standard weather code in the 
RDS system, it provides another real-time weather information service. The overall 
weather broadcasting system contains 3 main functions: the weather collection, encoding 
and RDS encoder and its receiver. In the weather information collection, we can gather 
the real-time weather information from internet, then we can correct the weather 
information into the international standard weather code. The international standard 
weather code is transmitted by RDS system in the numerical form and thus be received 
and displayed in the receiver 
-wireless emergent announcing system : in the wireless emergency announcement system 
application it is a emergency announcement system. The main device is a radio receiver 
with speaker. It can also has a wireless transmitter and receiver which is used to transmit 
the rescuing signal and receive the radio. Also, it may have high brightness LED which 
can be use to become a lighting equipment and a high capacity battery. It can receiving 
the broadcasting signal when the power failure. Therefore using the powerful features of 
RDS system the radio station can transmit correct signal. when most of communication 
channel is failed by accident, it can provide emergency rescue 
-method and apparatus for character information receiver of RDS :the method and 
apparatus for character information receiver of RDS application contains a receiving 
apparatus and algorithm of digital information for wireless broadcasting systems. -in house applications (IH) :can be used by the provider to transmit any data for internal 
purposes. Usual customer tuner should ignore these data.Can be used e.g. for remote 
switchin. 
 
A representative set of applications that can be enabled or enhanced by an RDS-based 
data broadcast.[ 4] RDS constitutes a low-rate, low-cost data broadcast channel for the 
radio station (Fig. 4) Given the virtually universal availability of FM radio, RDS can 
support many delay tolerant low rate data services in lieu of or in addition to cellular or 
Wi-Fi connectivity.  
 
 
 
 
Figure 4. RDS can enable new applications on mobile devices with a low-rate but highly 
available digital broadcast channel for each radio station 
 
RDS can act as a data link layer for custom applications, it lacks the packet caching and 
assembly capabilities to transfer either a stream or data chunks for the applications with 
RDS-Link  protocol which provides an interface between applications and the RDS 
enabled FM receiver (Figure 5). Applications may subscribe to certain types of data 
chunks from one or more radio stations. Whenever RDS-Link receives a chunk for a 
subscribing application, it forwards the received chunk to the application. To support 
existing RDS-unaware applications, such as a web browser, one can develop an RDS-
aware intermediate application to receive certain chunk types from a station and save 
them as files. The browser or other RDS-unaware applications can then access the locally 
stored files through a Uniform Resource Locator (URL)[5] 
 
 
 
Figure 5. Relationship between RDS-Link, applications, and hardware 
  
 
VIII. Conclusion  
 
The highly available FM radio data system  (RDS) provides a low data rate digital 
broadcast channel alongside each FM channel. In this work, we demonstrate that it is 
feasible to utilize RDS to support services beyond its originally intended usage. We 
present a broad range of services that can be enabled or enhanced by RDS . 
 
References 
 
[1] Kopitz, Dietmar - RDS: the radio data system - Artech House ,1999 ISBN 0-89006- 
744-9 
[2]Claudiu  Bârcă,  Cristian  Bârcă  Introduction  in  Radio  Data  System-Journal of 
Information System & Operations Management,, 2008 
[3] Cenelec, Specifications of the Radio Data System, EN 50067:1998. 
[4] Ahmad Rahmati,  Lin Zhong,  Venu Vasudevan,  Jehan Wickramasuriya,  Jehan 
Wickramasuriya,  Daniel Stewart- Enabling Pervasive Mobile Applications with the FM 
Radio Broadcast Data System, HotMobile’10, February 22–23, 2010, Annapolis, MD, 
USA. 
[5]Lu, H., Pan, W., Lane, N.D., Choudhury, T. and Campbell, A.T. SoundSense: scalable 
sound sensing for people-centric applications on mobile phones. Proc. Int. Conf. Mobile 
Systems, Applications and Services (MobiSys), 2009. 
 
 

Cristian Bârcă Introduction

Enabling Pervasive Mobile Applications with the FM Radio Broadcast Data System,

RDS: the radio data system - Artech House

SoundSense: scalable sound sensing for people-centric applications on mobile phones.

Specifications of the Radio Data System,

RADIO DATA SYSTEM APPLICATIONS

http://www.rebe.rau.ro/RePEc/rau/jisomg/SP11/JISOM-SP11-A16.pdf

RADIO DATA SYSTEM APPLICATIONS

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