Performance Evaluation of ATSC 3.0 MIMO Precoding

ATSC 3.0, the latest Digital Terrestrial Television (DTT) standard, allows a higher spectral efficiency and/or a transmission robustness with Multiple-Input Multiple-Output (MIMO) technology compared to existing single-antenna DTT networks. Regarding MIMO precoding, three precoding blocks known as Steam Combining (SC), IQ Polarization Interleaving (IQPI) and Phase Hopping (PH) are possible in ATSC 3.0. The three MIMO precoding blocks are standardized as optional, but the performance has not been evaluated. This paper focuses on the performance evaluation of the three MIMO precoding algorithms in ATSC 3.0 using physical layer simulations. Potential gains in required signal to noise ratio (SNR) for several modulation and coding combinations have been evaluated in a fundamental cross-polarized 2x2 MIMO transmission model and MIMO channel snapshots actually captured in an urban area. The fundamental simulation results showed that IQPI and PH provide some gains in a power imbalanced channel and in a small cross polarization discrimination case, respectively. The study based on the practical MIMO channel snapshots concluded that SC potentially provide some gains especially with QPSK and high code rate, but IQPI and PH are less likely to beneficial in an actual static reception scenario.