An Algorithm for Detection of DVB-T Signals Based on Their Second-Order Statistics

We propose in this paper a detection algorithm based on a cost function that jointly tests the correlation induced by the cyclic prefix and the fact that this correlation is time-periodic. In the first part of the paper, the cost function is introduced and some analytical results are given. In particular, the noise and multipath channel impacts on its values are theoretically analysed. In a second part of the paper, some asymptotic results are derived. A first exploitation of these results is used to build a detection test based on the false alarm probability. These results are also used to evaluate the impact of the number of cycle frequencies taken into account in the cost function on the detection performances. Thanks to numerical estimations, we have been able to estimate that the proposed algorithm detects DVB-T signals with an SNR of  dB. As a comparison, and in the same context, the detection algorithm proposed by the 802.22 WG in 2006 is able to detect these signals with an SNR of  dB.