Robust Emergency Communications Using TxID Watermark of ATSC DTV System

Abstract

In today’s world, having a reliable communication system during emergency situations is of paramount importance to lessen the impact of the disasters. This paper proposes an emergency communication technique which is enabled by ATSC DTV transmitter identification (TxID) watermark signal. Theoretical and simulation results show that ATSC TxID watermark signal can reach a larger coverage area than the 8-VSB DTV signal and hence can be used to enable emergency communication during national disastrous situations. The coverage for this emergency communication system is predicted using popular Hata-Davidson propagation model and coverage maps clearly showing the extended and overlapped coverage for DTV stations in Huron and Stratford area in the province of Ontario, Canada is presented. Comparison with other existing emergency communication systems is carried out and performance matrices such as alerting message error rate, required no. of stations, network reliability etc. are evaluated to assess the robustness of the proposed emergency communication system.