Digital audio broadcasting in the FM band based on continuous phase modulation

A method for broadcasting digital audio signals simultaneously with existing analog frequency modulation radio (88-108 MHz) in adjacent channels is presented. The digital transmission is based on continuous phase modulation (CPM) and a proper reduced-state sequence estimator. With the proposed method, the power level and the symbol rate of the transmitter signal is determined in a manner that the interference the CPM signal poses for the analog FM signal in adjacent channels remains below a level according to the radio frequency emission mask defined by international rules. Due to the multipath propagation of the transmitted signal, the transmission behavior of the radio channel is determined by high dispersion up to 85 μs. With the selected bit rate, the receiver has to cope with a channel memory of up to 17 bits. Since Viterbi detection is not feasible due to the number of channel states, detection is performed by a reduced-state sequence estimator that is able to eliminate the complete channel interference by decision feedback. Simulation results show that the detector almost achieves the detection quality of the optimum receiver. CPM achieves data rates of up to 200 kb/s inside a 200 kHz FM channel, which is sufficient for transmission of digital compressed audio signals at compact disc quality. The encouraging results of field tests will be published in another paper.