Please read the White Paper Copyright Notice

Download
WHP157 0.8 Mb

BBC R&D White Paper WHP157

MIMO for Broadcast – results from a high-power UK trial
J. Boyer, P.G. Brown (Arqiva), K. Hayler (National Grid Wireless, UK), M. Lopez Garcia (Arqiva), J.D. Mitchell, P.N. Moss and M.J. Thorp

Keywords
–

Abstract
Results are presented from a 250W ERP trial of a dual polarisation MIMO/DVB-T system carried out at the Guildford Transmitter site in the UK. Survey work using custom MIMO receiving hardware has allowed a coverage comparison with standard DVB-T and the development of a simple model of the 2-by-2 propagation channel for both fixed and portable reception.

Practical details of the survey work and analysis of the results are presented. It has been found that the dual polarisation MIMO system coverage compares very well with that obtained from standard DVB-T, yet offers up to twice the payload bit-rate in the same 8MHz channel. A system offering such an increase in capacity is particularly valuable at a time when efficient use of spectrum is an important consideration, and the opportunities to acquire new spectrum for additional services post digital switchover may be limited.