Performance assessment of DVB-T and wireless communication systems by means of cross-layer measurements

This thesis deals with the study and the application of measurement methods for the analysis of digitally modulated signals, deployed for wireless communications and television broadcasting. The goal is to develop methods allowing to efficiently assess the performance of transmission - reception systems upon the varying of transmission parameters and of the channel. In this way guidelines for the optimization of transmission set-up and of the network planning can be obtained, thus reducing the environmental impact of EM fields and at the same time providing an adequate quality of service. The methods developed, known as cross-layer measurements, provide an analysis of the signal to be simultaneously carried out at different layers. In this way correlation relationships between physical layer parameters and higher layer ones (transport, network, application) can be obtained. These cross-layer measurements are applied to a DVB-T transmission platform (Part I), in collaboration with Digilab, Bozen, and furthermore, they are deployed for the assessment of coexistence problems of IEEE 802.11b and IEEE 802.15.4 wireless networks (Part II).