Local service insertion in terrestrial Single Frequency Networks based on hierarchical modulation

Abstract

The increase of the spectral efficiency of digital broadcast systems has been extensively studied over the past years. Especially Single Frequency Networks (SFNs) with OFDM multicarrier transmission have been introduced as an important technology for an efficient usage of the scarce resource spectrum. In an SFN all transmitters send the same signal synchronized in time and frequency. Therefore the insertion of local services within SFNs is not possible without causing severe interference. Hierarchical modulation, which is known from transmission standards like DVB-T and T-DMB, provides an interesting means of inserting local services within an SFN, minimizing the interference in the network. This paper presents a system for the local service insertion in terrestrial SFNs based on hierarchical modulation, which is especially interesting for next generation mobile broadcasting systems like DVB-NGH or ATSC 3.0.