Adaptive Modulation and Coding in High-Power DVB-T2 Transmission — EN 302 755 EU Standard

Abstract

Adaptive Modulation and Coding (AMC) has become a critical mechanism in optimizing the performance of Digital Video Broadcasting–Terrestrial, second generation (DVB-T2), particularly for high-power transmission systems operating under the EN 302 755 EU standard. This study evaluates the trade-off between spectral efficiency, bit error rate (BER), and carrier-to-noise ratio (C/N) across various AMC profiles at a transmitter power of 5 kW over a 10 km coverage radius. Simulations were conducted using MATLAB DVB-T2 toolboxes and validated with laboratory measurements on a 1 kW prototype exciter. Results show that QPSK 1/2 achieved robust performance at low C/N (3.8 dB) with BER ≤ 10⁻⁷, but spectral efficiency was limited to 1.0 bit/s/Hz. Conversely, 256-QAM 3/4 provided maximum throughput (6.7 bit/s/Hz) but required a C/N threshold of 21.4 dB to maintain BER ≤ 2 × 10⁻⁶. Intermediate modes such as 16-QAM 1/2 and 64-QAM 2/3 offered balanced performance, delivering 2.2 and 4.5 bit/s/Hz at C/N thresholds of 7.9 dB and 14.6 dB, respectively. Laboratory field trials confirmed that adaptive switching between modulation-coding schemes reduced outage probability by 27% compared to static configurations, while improving average spectral efficiency by 18%. These findings demonstrate that AMC under the EN 302 755 standard significantly enhances system robustness and spectrum utilization in high-power DVB-T2 deployments.