Multilevel RS/convolutional concatenated coded QAM for hybrid IBOC-AM broadcasting

Bandwidth efficient modulation schemes using Reed-Solomon (RS) codes are proposed for hybrid in-band-on-channel (IBOC) systems that broadcast digital audio signals simultaneously with analog amplitude modulation (AM) programs in the AM band. Since both the power and bandwidth allocated for digital audio transmission are limited in this application, the system cannot afford to add enough redundancy for error control using conventional concatenated coding schemes. We show that by using multilevel RS and convolutional concatenated coded quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM), an efficient modulation schemes can be obtained for applications such as IBOC-AM broadcasting.