DVB-SH

Radio Network Planning Tool

(Release 4.2)

© by AWE Communications GmbH. All rights reserved 1

1 Introduction
1.1 Overview
Digital Video Broadcasting Satellite to Handheld (DVB-SH) aims to provide multimedia
services to the mobile user on a cost-effective way by the inter-working of satellite systems
with terrestrial networks. The DVB-SH system is based on the concept of a hybrid
satellite/terrestrial architecture and relies on the OFDM radio interface defined for
broadcasting networks to achieve a coherent combination of terrestrial and satellite signals.
In such a “single frequency” radio network configuration, the satellite might be seen as a
complementary signal source serving users in rural and suburban areas, while terrestrial
repeaters operating at the same frequency as the satellite are used to amplify the signal in
urban areas and to enhance indoor penetration, i.e. in those areas where the satellite signal
is subject to shadowing.

In order to assess the DVB-SH radio coverage in different environments the off-the-shelf
radio network planning tool WinProp has been adapted to consider satellite transmitters
and further extended according to the current specification of the DVB-SH system. This DVB-
SH radio planning tool allows the investigation of the DVB-SH performance in terms of
coverage, SNIR and system margin for different satellite and terrestrial repeater
configurations within various environments. Such investigations will be used to trade the
open radio parameters of the DVB-SH system architecture and to gain knowledge concerning
the required density of the terrestrial repeaters for the network roll-out (in order to provide
sufficient coverage in urban and indoor environments).

Figure 1: Basic structure of the DVB-SH radio network planning tool

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1.2 Concept
The planning tool allows the user to define a specific DVB-SH network configuration
comprising the satellite segment, an arbitrary number of terrestrial repeaters and the user
equipment. Based on the accurate prediction of the satellite and repeater radio channels in
terms of path loss delay profiles by using e.g. a deterministic ray-optical wave propagation
model the defined DVB-SH network is evaluated. The calculation of the different path loss
delay profiles forms the basis of the DVB-SH system simulation.

The DVB-SH system simulator superposes the radio channels of the corresponding satellite
and repeater links by taking into account the predicted path loss delay profiles and considers
the various parameters (link budget, time delay) of the defined satellite and repeater
infrastructure. For the evaluation of the coverage the OFDM receiver included in the user
equipment is modeled in a detailed manner. The impinging contributions are analyzed
according to their delay. Consideration of the guard interval determines the DVB-SH radio
coverage for a specific location (inside an urban area of interest) and a given service.
According to this concept there are two basic parts of the DVB-SH radio network planning
tool as described in Figure 1:

• Wave propagation modeling of the radio channels (for satellite and repeaters)
• DVB-SH system simulation (superposition of signals, modeling of user terminal)

Both parts have been integrated into the DVB-SH radio network planning tool which has
been extended by a graphical user interface in order to allow the convenient definition of the
DVB-SH infrastructure including all relevant parameters.

Table 1: Principles of the DVB-SH radio network planning tool

OFDM air interface (SFN with guard interval)

Downlink operation
Principles Satellite, terrestrial or hybrid infrastructure
Superposition of satellite and repeater signals
OFDM receiver in user terminal
Service channels (allocated power, data rates)
Signalling channels (allocated power)
Configurations SNIR targets as coverage thresholds
Intra- and intersystem interference
Satellite diversity

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2 Wave Propagation Modeling
Wave propagation models are mandatory for radio network planning in order to determine
the coverage situation and multi-path effects. Radio transmission in urban environments is
subject to strong multi-path propagation (see Figure 2). Dominant characteristics are the
reflection at walls, diffraction around corners, shadowing due to buildings and the wave
guiding in street canyons (for terrestrial transmitters). Penetration is important if additionally
the indoor scenarios should be taken into account. To consider these effects and as the
DVB-SH system utilizes a guard interval incl. in the OFDM air interface the usage of a wave
propagation model which is capable of predicting the impulse response (path loss delay
profile) is required.

Table 2: Scenarios and wave propagation models in the DVB-SH planning tool

Scenarios Wave Propagation Models

Urban/Indoor based on Ray Tracing (rigorous 3D)
• 3D vector data of buildings Ray Tracing (2x2D)
• pixel data of topography (optional) Ray Tracing in horizontal plane plus
• 3D vector data of vegetation (optional) knife-edge diffraction model

Wide area based on LMS channel model according to DLR

• clutter data in pixel format for the satellite channel
• pixel data of topography (optional) Hata-Okumura plus ITU Vehicular A/B
and Pedestrian A/B for the terrestrial
channel

2.1 Ray tracing for urban and indoor scenarios

The ray-optical model allows a site-specific prediction of the radio channel for terrestrial
repeaters as well as for satellites in urban and indoor environments. For accuracy reasons a
three dimensional description of the environment including building shapes and building
heights has to be incorporated, i.e. each building is described as a polygonal cylinder with
uniform height (see Figure 2). Valid rays between transmitter and receiver are determined
according to a ray tracing technique using the principles of geometrical optics (incl.
reflections and diffractions). To calculate the path loss of each ray the free space loss is
superposed to the loss due to reflection, diffraction or penetration.

The model takes into account up to six reflections and two diffractions including as well
combinations of reflections and diffractions. Such a three dimensional ray optical approach
requires an higher computational effort than simplified empirical models. However, the
computation time is reduced significantly by a preprocessing of the building database, so
that predictions are available within a few minutes.

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 Rx

Tx

Figure 2: Propagation scenario in a typical urban environment (Paris)

2.2 LMS and Hata-Okumura models for wide areas

For the assessment of the DVB-SH coverage on large scale, i.e. on a significant part of a
beam region (corresponding to thousands of km2) wave propagation modeling results for
such wide areas are required. Using the ray-optical wave propagation model for such wide
scale simulations is rather difficult due to the computational demand and the lack of
corresponding databases. So the alternative is to use an empirical (statistical) channel model
as the DVB-SH tool has the possibility to use path loss delay profiles calculated by both
deterministic and empirical channel models.

Figure 3: Clutter database for wide area (80x80km2) around Paris

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For the evaluation of the satellite coverage in wide areas an empirical channel model has
been included in the DVB-SH planning tool which allows to reproduce typical impulse
responses of the land mobile satellite (LMS) channel based on different parameters (e.g.
user environment, satellite elevation angle). The model is based on the usage of clutter
databases as presented in Figure 3.

Figure 4: Prediction of the satellite coverage around Paris (LMS model)

In order to simulate the hybrid satellite/repeater infrastructure over such wide areas an
empirical (statistical) model for the terrestrial channel has been implemented. For this
purpose the ITU channel models vehicular A/B and pedestrian A/B have been selected (see
Table 3). While the vehicular model is valid for macro-cells the pedestrian model represents
the contributions from the repeater for a micro-cellular deployment. The path loss offset for
the repeater channel is calculated by using the model according to the well known Hata-
Okumura model (an empirical model widely applied for the path loss prediction in urban,
suburban and rural areas). The Hata-Okumura model evaluates clutter as well as
topographical databases for the path loss prediction.

Table 3: Channel profile according to ITU vehicular A channel

ITU-R Tap # Relative delay Relative power

vehicular A [ns] [dB]
Reference model 1 0 0
in vehicular and 2 310 -1
mobile
3 710 -9
environment with
large cells and 4 1090 -10
high power 5 1730 -15
6 2510 -20

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3 DVB-SH System Simulation
3.1 OFDM air interface
The DVB-SH system simulator superposes the radio channels of the corresponding satellite
and repeater links by taking into account the predicted path loss delay profiles and considers
the various parameters (link budget, time delay) of the defined satellite and repeater
infrastructure. For the evaluation of the coverage the OFDM guard interval included in the air
interface is modeled in a detailed manner. The impinging contributions are analyzed
according to their delay (see Figure 5). Based on that the DVB-SH radio coverage for a
specific location (inside an urban area of interest) and a given service is determined.

Satellite 1st Repeater 2nd Repeater

power [dBm]

t in µs

Start of Rake window End of Rake window

Dedicated data channel

Signalling channels (common channels)
Other data channels

Figure 5: Detailed modeling of the guard interval

Based on this flexible realization of the DVB-SH planning tool it is possible to investigate
various DVB-SH architectures and to trade the open parameters of the satellite segment, the
terrestrial repeater segment and the user terminal segment.

3.2 Wave propagation results

Based on the evaluation of the computed rays different results can be computed for satellites
as well as terrestrial repeaters. Figure 6 shows the predicted received power for a satellite
link in the urban area of Milan, Italy.

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 Figure 6: Satellite coverage in Milan for GEO satellite

By adding the powers of the different rays the received power (and path loss) for a specific
transmitter can be calculated. Figure 7 describes the prediction of the received power for a
sectorised terrestrial repeater operating at 2197.5 MHz installed on top of one of the tallest
buildings at 60m in the city center of Munich, Germany. The wave guiding effects in the
street canyons as well as the shadowing behind buildings are clearly visible.

Figure 7: Prediction of received power for sectorised repeater in Munich

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3.3 Results indicating DVB-SH coverage for urban scenarios
The coverage in urban environments can be analyzed based on the vector building data and
the ray-optical wave propagation model. The simulations in general can be distinguished in
two cases. The pure satellite case and the case with additional deployment of terrestrial
repeaters in order to investigate the coverage improvements introduced by the repeaters.

Figure 8: Coverage in Munich for pure satellite (left) and hybrid network (right)

The coverage results computed by the DVB-SH RNPT for the urban scenario of Munich are
presented in Figure 8 for the pure satellite case on the left and for the hybrid satellite plus
IMR network on the right (green indicates coverage).

Figure 9 shows the distribution of the SNIR coverage over the urban city center of Milan for
the deployment of 3 repeater sites with three sectors each.

Figure 9: SNIR coverage in Milan for given repeater deployment

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3.4 Results indicating DVB-SH coverage for wide areas
By using the empirical channel models for the satellite (and the terrestrial repeaters)
coverage predictions for wide areas based on clutter (and topographical databases) are
possible. The SNIR coverage in case of a hybrid satellite and terrestrial repeater (with
hexagonal deployment) network is presented in Figure 10.

Figure 10: Hybrid coverage depending on Tx power and environment

Similar results can be generated for wide areas in case of satellite only infrastructure, i.e.
without terrestrial repeater deployment. For the repeaters different network topologies (omni
and sectorised repeaters) can be compared to an given SNIR target (depending on service
parameters as data rate, fading margin). The DVB-SH radio planning tool can consider
arbitrary sites where each sector can be individually configured concerning Tx power and
antenna pattern as well as antenna orientation.

The hybrid network has to be designed with care in order to ensure on one hand the
sufficient coverage in urban and suburban areas but on the other hand to limit the
degradation of the satellite signal in the surrounding of the city (due to the limited size of the
guard interval the satellite and repeater signals will interfere from a certain distance on).

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