Application of FBMC to DVB-T2: a Comparison vs Classical OFDM Transmissions

Abstract

In this paper, filter bank based multicarrier/Offset Quadrature Amplitude Modulation (FBMC/OQAM) is compared with a Cyclic Prefix based OFDM (CP-OFDM). Indeed, due to its high level of compatibility with OFDM systems, FBMC system is proposed as a new technique for European Digital Video Broadcasting-Terrestrial Second generation (DVB-T2) systems. To meet the performance requirement of the DVB-T2, the approach is based on a technique named nearly perfect reconstruction (NPR) filter bank system. The main characteristic of this approach is the use of Frequency Sampling (FS) Sub-Channel Equalizer, based on Complex Finite Impulse Response (CFIR) filter, to deal with the high frequency selective impairments. Simulation results indicate that, compared to FBMC, CP-OFDM requires about 1dB extra Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) value at a bit error rate of 10-3 for high order modulation formats and at large number of sub-carriers. As FBMC system discards the use of the cyclic prefix, commonly used in OFDM, the data rate can be increased of up to 14.84% or even 25% maintaining the same bandwidth utilization.