2011 International Conference on Computational Intelligence and Communication Systems
Simulation & Performance Analysis of DVB-T System Using Efficient
Wireless Channels
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Nirali A. Kotak Bhavin S. Sedani
Research Scholar, Asst. Prof. & Research Scholar
J.J.T. University, India J.J.T. University, India
nakotak83@gmail.com bhavin_s_sedani@yahoo.com
Abstract
This paper presents the critical comparative
analysis of efficient wireless channels using
the modeling of Digital Video Broadcasting
(DVB) system. In the last few years, the
telecommunication industries’ development
has focused on an intensive use of broadband
systems, which are characterized by high
quality features. For this issue, new
technologies with lower Bit Error Rate
abilities have been designed. That is the
fundamental of the wireless communication
system that allows a fast deployment as well
as efficient channel modeling. Digital Video
Broadcasting (DVB) is a set of internationally
accepted open standards for digital television,
maintained by the DVB Project. This system
is much more than a simple replacement for
existing analogue transmission. The paper
helps to understand the concept of effective
modeling of a DVB-T system with the proper
use of various types of wireless channels
under appropriate circumstances. In this
paper, we build up a DVB-T simulator which
is designed for digital terrestrial television
services to operate within the existing VHF
(Very High Frequency) and UHF (Ultra High
Frequency) spectrum allocations for analog
transmissions, 50-230 MHz and 470-870 MHz
respectively including digital modulation,
OFDM modulator and demodulator, different
channel models such as AWGN, Rayleigh and
Rician fading channels. In the first phase the
modeling and simulation of DVB-T system
has been presented along with different types
of channels. In the second phase the
comparative analysis of AWGN, Rayleigh and
Rician channel has been done under practical
scenario by taking the various values of Bit
Error Rate and S/N ratio as well as Doppler
shift.
Key words: DVB-T System, OFDM, AWGN
Channel, Rayleigh Channel, Rician Channel, BER &
SNR.
978-0-7695-4587-5/11 $26.00 © 2011 IEEE 685
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DOI 10.1109/CICN.2011.147
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Ved Vyas Dwivedi
Guide and Director
Noble Engineering College, India
director.principal.ngi@gmail.com
I. Introduction
The wireless networks have experienced massive
growth and commercial success in the recent
years. A new kind of “wireless video” is
currently entering consumer’s homes – digital
television. The term digital video broadcasting is
used as a synonym for digital television. Digital
Video Broadcasting is a transmission scheme
based on moving pictures expert group MPEG-2
video compression. DVB provides superior
picture quality with the opportunity to view
pictures in standard format or wide screen (16:9)
format along with mono, stereo and surround
sound. The three key DVB standards concern the
delivery of digital TV to the consumer via the
traditional broadcast networks are:
• DVB – S for satellite network
• DVB – C for cable network
• DVB – T for terrestrial network.
In the ETSI 300 744 standard, the DVB-T
system is defined as the functional block of
equipment performing the adaptation of the
baseband TV signals from the output of the
MPEG-2 transport multiplexer, to the terrestrial
channel characteristics. The DVB-T standard is
based on the Orthogonal Frequency Division
Multiplexing (OFDM) multi carrier modulation
scheme. The transmission data stream is
distributed over a set of orthogonal subcarriers,
equally spaced in pre-assigned VHF and UHF
channels, characterized by a bandwidth equal
respectively to 7 MHz and 8 MHz. Each
subcarrier is then digitally modulated according
to a QPSK, 16-QAM or 64-QAM scheme. The
number of subcarriers can be set according to
two modes of operation: 2K mode and 8K mode.
In general, the need for communication channel
are for providing faith full mobility, capable of
higher data rate, better integrated interoperable
with wide range of equipment, easier to
configure and use. Hence effective modeling and
diverting the multiple paths to the receiver is
extremely important for the performance of the
overall systems. In this paper, the simulation of
DVB – T system has been discussed with the
implementation of three wireless channels. First
part deals with the modeling and simulation of
DVB – T system with different wireless channels
and second part is regarding their comparative
analysis.
II. Orthogonal Frequency Division
Multiplexing
In real-life transmission environments, multipath
propagation and echoes from objects lead to the
received signals arriving at the destination in a
time-delayed fashion. These signals suffer
frequency selective fading as a result of the
multipath propagation effects. When single
carrier is used to carry high data rates (i.e., a
short symbol time), the received signals have
enough delay spread to fall into the slots of other
symbols thereby causing intersymbol
interference. In the case of a single carrier
modulation, this type of propagation limits the
data rates that can be used in non-line-of-sight
(NLOS) environments. The technology of
OFDM is based on the use of a large number of
carriers spread in the allocated bandwidth, with
each carrier being modulated by a
proportionately lower data rate than would be the
case in a single-carrier scenario.
Figure-1 OFDM
In OFDM systems, each carrier is orthogonal
with respect to the other carriers, so that the
sidebands of the carrier cancel out rather than
interfering with the next carrier. OFDM is a
common technology used in achieving high bit
rates in all wireless and wireline systems, which
may be subject to frequency selective fading or
intersymbol interference from reflected signals.
OFDM systems provide a very robust
transmission technique for NLOS environments.
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III. DVB-T System with AWGN channel
The simplest type of channel is the Gaussian
channel. It is often referred to the additive white
Gaussian noise (AWGN) channel. Basically, it is
the noise generated in the receiver side if we
assume that the transmitter is ideal and noiseless.
This type of noise is assumed to have a constant
power spectral density over the whole channel
bandwidth and its amplitude probability density
function (PDF) obeys the statistics of a Gaussian
distribution. The classical AWGN channel is
always considered as the starting point to
develop basic systems performance. Also,
according to central limit theorem, even when
there are a larger number of non-Gaussian
independent noise sources, the mobile channel
noise may still be approximated with a Gaussian
distribution.
The traditional model for DVB – T system is
built on OFDM & 64-QAM modulation scheme.
The modeling setup includes Matlab R2007a,
Simulink7 and Communications Block set 3
running on Windows XP SP2. Matlab Simulink
includes all the mandatory function blocks as
specified by the standard documents. The Model
itself consists of three main components namely
transmitter, receiver and channel. Transmitter
and receiver components consist of modulation/
demodulation blocks and OFDM modulation and
demodulation blocks whereas channel is
modeled as AWGN.
Bernoulli data generator is the first process
carried out in the physical layer after the data
packet is received from the higher layers.
Forward Error Correction is done on both the
Uplink and the Downlink bursts and consists of
concatenation of Reed- Solomon Outer Code and
a rate compatible convolution inner code.
Convolution coders are used to correct the
random error during the data transmission. The
block interleaver interleaves all encoded data bits
with a block size corresponding to the number of
coded bits per OFDM symbol. The number of
coded bits depends on the modulation technique
used in the Physical layer.
The function of the IQ mapper is to map the
incoming bits of data from inter-leaver onto a
constellation. In the modulation phase the coded
bits are mapped to the IQ constellation.
Now before transmitting this modulated data
stream through the channel, it is given to the
OFDM modulator block which performs the
multiplexing over the data in such a manner that
approximately 50% of the bandwidth can be
saved because of the mechanism of bifurcating
the signal in in-phase and quadrature phase
components. Basically OFDM modulator and
demodulator comprise of mainly IFFT and FFT
blocks respectively for the orthogonal
component generation.
Rayleigh channel. In urban areas where generally
there is no line of sight component present, the
analysis of the mobile radio channel can be
obtained by modeling the Rayleigh channel
rather than AWGN channel for mobile
communication because the multipath structure
can completely predicated through the modeling
of this.

Figure 3 System model with Rayleigh channel

Figure 2 System model with AWGN channel
Finally the processed data from the transmitter
block is transmitted through AWGN channel
which will give the different values of BER at
various S/N level in the long distance
communication. At higher db values of the SNR,
the realization of AWGN channel gives the
maximum accurate throughput about the signal
variations because through the modeling of
AWGN channel, the point to point variation in
BER can be found out wrt SNR at longer
distances.
V. System modeling using Rician channel
Rayleigh channel model is suitable for modeling
urban areas that are characterized by many
obstructions where a line of sight path does not
exist between the transmitter and receiver. In
suburban areas, a line of sight path may exist
between the transmitter and receiver and this will
give rise to Rician fading.

IV. System modeling using Rayleigh channel

In a mobile radio communication system, one of
the most devastating phenomena is fading.
Fading is the direct result of multi-path
propagation where radio waves propagate along
different paths before arriving at the receiver
antenna. These radio waves may arrive at
receiver after different delays, with different
amplitudes, and with different phases. Because
there are so many different received signal
components, constructive and destructive
interference results in fading. This sort of
channel is called a multi-path fading channel or Figure 4 System model with Rician channel

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 Rician fading is characterized by a factor, which
is expressed as the power ratio of the specular
(los or dominant path) component to the diffused
component. This ratio, k, defines how near to
Rayleigh statistics the channel is. In fact when
k=infinite, there is no fading at all and when
k=0, this means to have Rayleigh fading. The
ratio is expressed linearly, not in decibels. While
the Average path gain vector parameter controls
the overall gain through the channel, the K-factor
parameter controls the gain’s partition into line-
of-sight and diffuses components.
It can be seen from the figure 5 that as the SNR
of AWGN channel decreases, the fluctuation of
the OFDM symbols form the mean values are
changing and hence BER of system increases
proportionally. It also shows that at very low
SNR the symbols are very difficult to recognize.
Real time signals are also transmitted through
this model.

VI. Simulation Results

(a)

(a)

(b)
Figure 6(a) & (b) Simulation Results for Rayleigh channel
with 1/1000 and 1/100 Doppler shift

In case of Rayleigh channel modeling the

complete multipath structure of the transmitted
signal can be analyzed by means of the variation
in the amount of Doppler shift as well as path
gain factor.

(b)
Figure 5(a) & (b) Simulation Results for AWGN channel
with 8 db and 22 db SNR

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(a)
(b)
Figure 7 (a) & (b) Simulation Results for Rician channel with
k=10 and k=40
From the simulation results shown in figure 7,
for the Rician channel modeling, it can be
observed that the BER totally depends upon the
value of k-factor which gives the relationship
between the line of sight path and the multi
paths. As k-factor increases the error rate would
decrease because communication is now tending
towards the line of sight communication.
VII. Conclusion
Based on the simulation models of DVB-T
presented in this paper and the tests carried out,
the comparative performance analysis of the
three wireless channels i.e. AWGN, Rayleigh
and Rician can be described based on various
parameters. For the long distance
communication, at the higher value of SNR, it is
appropriate to model wireless channel as AWGN
channel because through this modeling we can
analyze the variations in SNR through which the
BER can be calculated. While for the small scale
propagation, under the multi path environment,
the modeling of wireless channel as a Rayleigh
channel will give the accurate analysis if no line
of sight component is present. But if surrounding
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atmosphere supports the single line of sight
component along with the multipath structure
then the Rician channel realization will give the
appropriate modeling scenario for the modeling
of any wireless system.
VIII. Future Work
To combat with the current demands of wireless
technologies, still the performance of the DVB-T
system can be improved by reducing the BER at
lower SNR with the implementation of various
antenna diversity techniques.
IX. References
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Communication, published by Cambridge University Press,
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