Capacity Analysis and Improvement of LDM-Based Multiple-PLP Configurations in ATSC 3.0

This article analyzes the capacities of various layered-division multiplexing (LDM)-based multiple physical layer pipe (M-PLP) configurations in Advanced Television Systems Committee (ATSC) 3.0. Further, this article proposes an extended multi-layer LDM that consists of a core layer and one or more enhanced layer(s) combined with different injection levels. The proposed multi-layer LDM can be combined with time-division multiplexing (TDM) and/or frequency division multiplexing (FDM) to multiplex more than two PLPs. This article provides the structures of a transmitter and receiver for the multi-layer LDM and various M-PLP configurations based on the proposed multi-layer LDM. In addition, by extending to a multi-layer LDM, the low rate low-density parity-check (LDPC) codes are proposed to improve the transmission efficiency of an extremely robust service with lower data rate, such as robust audio, in the core layer of the multi-layer LDM. Simulation results show that the M-PLP configurations based on more than two layers can obtain the improved reception performance compared to the M-PLP configurations based on only two layers supported by the PHY standard in ATSC 3.0. However, since the performance degradation of layered time-division multiplexing (LTDM) with fewer layers is not significant compared to multi-layer LDM, LTDM can be a good solution to efficiently transmit M-PLPs.