Analysis of the Impact of Man-Made Noise on DVB-T and DVB-T2

The crowded UHF band makes the VHF band an interesting complement for digital terrestrial broadcasting with additional benefits as lower free space loss and superior propagation conditions. However, the VHF band suffers significantly higher levels of man-made noise compared to the UHF band. Such man-made noise is unintentionally emitted by a large number of electronic devices as e.g. computers or switching effects in the mains. The variety of potential man-made noise sources also leads to a variety of man-made noise characteristics, ranging from white noise to narrow-band interferers or strong impulsive noise events. Almost all state-of-the-art terrestrial broadcast systems as e.g. DVB-T2 are based on the multi-carrier modulation OFDM, which is especially vulnerable towards impulsive noise. Network planners and receiver designers have to take the effects of man-made noise into account for the proper operation of digital VHF broadcast networks. Therefore, this paper shows the results for VHF man-made noise measurements and analysis the impact of man-made noise on DVB-T and DVB-T2 by means of system simulations. Furthermore, the document analyses the effect of selected receiver algorithms to counteract the effects of man-made noise.