Characterization of the wideband wireless channel in the context of DVB systems

Recent radio systems (3G, DVB-T/H) present a wideband bandwidth possibly enlarging the capacity of the networks. The systems are interference-limited and thus an accurate radio network planning requires a refined characterization of the interference levels. A French research project called Semafor has been set up to investigate this characterization by means of two tools. First a hardware equipment is able to detect low interference levels by making use of antenna arrays and powerful algorithms. Second a coverage simulation tool is used. It is based on a propagation model able to estimate accurately large range echoes. System parameters like the interference level and SINR for DVB are simulated and validated by extensive measurement campaigns realized in the project with sophisticated testbeds.