The application of OFDM in digital multimedia broadcasting

The paper considers the application of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) techniques in the physical layer of a satellite system devoted to the provision of digital multimedia broadcasting (DMB) services, which are presently the focus of extensive research and development endeavours. In particular, the paper demonstrates that the inherently high spectrum efficiency of OFDM can be retained even in unfavourable propagation channels affected by heavy non-linear and linear distortion, respectively introduced by the on-board high power amplifier and by multi-path propagation. This encouraging performance is achieved through the proper design and application of coding and predistortion techniques, as described in the paper.