ISDB-T receiver with single-RF diversity using a 3-element ESPAR antenna

Integrated Services Digital Broadcasting - Terrestrial (ISDB-T) is a digital television broadcasting standard that uses orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM). In mobile environments, the ISDB-T receiver performance is greatly affected by multipath propagation. To mitigate this problem, most in-vehicle ISDB-T receivers use space diversity reception techniques. However, it implies increased hardware complexity, more complicated installation, and higher power consumption. In this paper, we propose an ISDB-T receiver with single-RF diversity using a 3-element electronically steerable passive array radiator (ESPAR) antenna. The proposed receiver obtains diversity gain requiring a single-RF chain only, thus improving on the disadvantages of space diversity reception techniques. The simulation results show that with perfect channel state information (CSI), the proposed ISDB-T receiver is capable of obtaining a diversity gain that is close to that of a space diversity scheme with three receivers (Tx=1, Rx=3) using maximal-ratio combining (MRC).