Performance analysis of a multicarrier digital audio broadcasting system in a wide-band mobile radio environment

Over the past few years, digital technologies have been growing in such a way that a new generation of audio broadcasting systems, fully digital, can now become cost effective. For this purpose coded orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (COFDM), a new transmission technique designed in Europe, is promising. COFDM combines a multicarrier modulator/demodulator, a convolutional coding system and a time-frequency interleaver. In order to perform the evaluation of this system, we need an accurate channel model which takes into account the physical structure and the time varying nature of the propagation medium. The purpose of this article is to study the performance of COFDM using a wide band channel simulator based on the scattering function. The influence of the physical channel structure on the UHF scattering electromagnetic waves viewed by the mobile receivers is discussed. This analysis leads to a mobile radio channel model based on the scattering function of the propagation medium