On The Application of MPE-FEC to Mobile DVB-S2: Performance Evaluation in Deep Fading Conditions

Digital video broadcasting through satellite transmission will provide new services to aeronautical, railway and maritime mobile terminals. However, mobile channel impairments request effective countermeasures to improve the C/N performance and counteract Doppler spread. The paper investigates the application of MPE-FEC (multi protocol encapsulation -forward error correction) to DVB-S2 standard chain for railway applications. In this scenario, trellis power arches may introduce deep fading events which cause bursts of data losses. An analytical model describing MPE-FEC decoder performance has been derived and validated through numerical simulation considering different train speed values, MOD-COD (modulation order and physical layer coding rate) configurations and number of rows in the MPE-FEC frame. Results show that, depending on the train speed, enlarging the number of rows or adopting a sliding encoding mechanism are effective in counteracting power arches impairments.