Multi-antenna diversity gain in terrestrial broadcasting receivers on vehicles: A coverage probability perspective

This paper theoretically and empirically explores the reliability gain that can be obtained by installing multiple antennas in on-vehicle broadcasting receivers. Analytical derivations reveal that maximal-ratio-combining-based diversity allows a multi-antenna receiver (MR) to achieve significantly better coverage probability than a single-antenna receiver (SR). In particular, the notable MR gains for low-power reception and high-throughput services are highlighted. We also discuss various aspects of mobile MRs, including geometric coverage, volume of the users served, and impact of receiver velocity. To examine the feasibility of MRs in the real world, extensive field experiments were conducted, particularly with on-air ATSC 3.0 broadcast transmissions. Relying on the celebrated erroneous second ratio criterion, MRs with two and four antennas were verified to achieve notable reliability gains over SRs in practice. Furthermore, our results also prove that layered-division multiplexing can cope better with receiver mobility than traditional time-division multiplexing when multiple services are intended in the same radio frequency channel.