Understanding ATSC Mobile DTV Physical Layer

1 Whitepaper The ATSC began work in 2007 on the development of an ATSC Mobile DTV Standard. This effort culminated in record time with the approval of the ATSC Mobile DTV Standard (A/153) in Oct. 2009. This paper will discuss the inherent challenges and the technology added to adapt the 8-VSB physical layer to mitigate the mobile fading channel and to enable ATSC Mobile DTV reception (A/153 standard). by the FCC as the DTV standard for the United States to transition from analog to digital television broadcasting. Figure 1 below shows a time line. The A/53 Digital Television broadcasting system was conceived and has been successfully operating as a fixed (reception) service bringing HDTV and SDTV programming to many terrestrial viewers. However, globally the interest in broadcasting audio and video content and data services to mobile and handheld devices increased (2004-2009) with the ensuing development of several mobile standards such as DVB-H, ISDB-T, T-DMB, CMMB and Media-FLO™. Some European markets have DVB-H deployments, ISDB-T is used in Japan, T-DMB in Korea and CMMB is being used in China. In the United States, Qualcomm developed and standardized through TIA a mobile technology known as Media-FLO™. In 2007 encouraged by technical demonstrations 1 the ATSC believed 1 (2005-2007) Samsung and Rohde & Schwarz developed and it was technically possible to enable mobile broadcasting by adding enhancements to existing A/53 standard. The mobile system envisioned would allow a mixture of fixed and mobile services (dual stream system). This, while ensuring backward compatible in the sense that the new mobile services when present would have no negative effect on existing A/53 receivers. This in-band (6 MHz) dual stream system would require significant adaptation of physical layer to enable ATSC mobile receivers to successfully mitigate a mobile fading environment. The ATSC began work in 2007 on the development of an ATSC Mobile DTV Standard. This effort culminated in record time 2 with the approval of the ATSC Mobile DTV Standard (A/153) in Oct. 2009. This paper will discuss the inherent challenges and the technology added to adapt the 8-VSB physical layer to mitigate the mobile fading channel and to enable ATSC Mobile DTV reception (A/153 standard). The starting point and the foundational demonstrated a technology named Advanced-VSB to the ATSC; demonstrating that mobile reception was possible with ATSC 8-VSB while maintaining fixed services. This encouraged the ATSC BOD to issue a New Work Item Proposal …