A Software 8 - VSB Receiver for ATSC Digital Television by Chia

This thesis presents the design and evaluation of a software 8-VSB receiver for ATSC digital television (DTV). Based on an unique software radio architecture, employing wideband digitization and a conventional workstation, this receiver uses novel software algorithms to achieve carrier and timing synchronization. Carrier and timing synchronization are typically accomplished with analog techniques, thereby comprising the most hardware-dependent stages of the DTV processing. The approach of this thesis enables signal processing solutions that are more portable and flexible, by designing software-friendly algorithms to replace exclusively hardware methods. This, in turn, facilitates the construction of an all-software digital television. As digital television becomes more widespread and popular, future demands for DTV services will diversify, making the flexibility of software an attractive quality. Currently, the performance of the receiver is limited by the lack of adaptive interference suppression. While an investigation of this topic is beyond the scope of this work, the software techniques developed in this thesis successfully meet the requirements of carrier and timing recovery for ATSC DTV signals. Thesis Supervisor: John V. Guttag Title: Professor and Head, Electrical Engineering and Computer Science