DAB physical layer considerations for a reuse in cognitive radio systems

The digital audio broadcasting (DAB) standard allows high spectrum efficiency, high voice quality, energy saving transmission and additional non-audio services like video and data transmission. Especially the last aspect enables the reuse of the DAB physical layer (PHY) for cognitive radio (CR) systems This manuscript analyzes the performance of a DAB system with respect to the standardized forward error correction (FEC) in an additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) scenario under perfect synchronization assumption. The FEC consists of a Reed-Solomon (RS) code, followed by a convolutional code. In addition, puncturing as part of the equal error protection profiles (EEPPs) in the MSC (Main Service Channel) is applied.