Robust decision feedback equalizer for ATSC DTV receivers

Least mean square (LMS) decision feedback equalizer (DFE) is preferred as an effective solution to coping with inter-symbol interference (ISI) for ATSC digital television (DTV) receivers. In DTV transmission environment, echo delay often covers several hundreds symbols, which leads to very large-scale equalizer. One consequence of the large-scale equalizer is the very slow convergence, which combined with error propagation, inherent drawback of DFE, seriously deteriorates the performance of the receivers, especially in severe channels. More working modes and corresponding robust control mechanism were given to help the equalizer converge to the stable state smoothly. Simulation results show that the improved equalizer can perform better, especially in the severe channels.