Improving Object Delivery Using Application Layer Tornado Codes in DVB-H Systems

This paper analyzes the effects of applying application layer forward error correcting (FEC) coding to a wireless filecasting system, here represented by DVB-H. We show the benefit of moving error correcting coding to higher levels in the data transmission protocol stack. The data is delivered using a data carousel and the FEC code utilized is a hyper-Tornado code for which the main characteristics are long codewords and near linear complexity. Because the hyper-Tornado code provides internal data interleaving and supports long code lengths, we can observe a significantly decreased number of mean data carousel iterations before an error-free carousel object is received compared to the basic DVB-H system. This reduction is for the user observed as decreased download-time, but also provides energy saving in the receiver due to shorter receiver on-times