Coded Decision Directed Demodulation for Second Generation Digital Video Broadcasting Standard

Second generation terrestrial digital video broadcasting (DVB-T2) standard aims at providing high definition television and high rate services for the same spectrum allocation of current DVB-T standard. This goal is achieved by adopting new physical layer features that increase the spectrum efficiency. In this respect, the insertion of pilot tones in the orthogonal frequency division multiplexed (OFDM) signal, though allowing an efficient channel estimation, decreases the spectral efficiency. In this paper we evaluate performance of the coded decision directed demodulation (CD3) technique for channel estimation in DVB-T2. In fact, by iterating between decoding and channel estimation, with the latter obtained by using previously decoded symbols, CD3 is able to provide an accurate channel estimation with very few pilots, even in the presence of highly frequency dispersive and time-variant channels. Numerical results are provided for a comparison in terms of achievable throughput between DVB-T2 with CD3 and current DVB-T. Moreover, multiple antennas at the base station are also considered to provide spatial diversity and hence further improve system performance.