Robust sensing of dvb-t/h transmissions

A method for detecting the presence of a DVB (digital video broadcasting) transmission, comprising:

• receiving an RF (radio frequency) signal in a selected channel;
• creating signal samples from the received signal;
• correlating the signal samples with a reference sequence;
• calculating an averaged correlation value by taking an average of correlation results corresponding to a predetermined number of signal samples that are separated by a minimum pilot pattern repetition period from one to the next signal sample;
• and
• comparing the averaged correlation value with a threshold correlation value.

A system for detecting the presence of a DVB (digital video broadcasting) transmission, comprising:

• an RF (radio frequency) front-end module (501) for receiving an RF signal;
• a sampling module (502) for creating signal samples from the received RF signal;
• a buffer (503) for holding the signal samples;
• an accumulating/averaging module (505) for creating averaged samples from the signal samples, each of the averaged samples being an average of a predetermined number of signal samples that are separated by a minimum pilot pattern repetition period from one to the next signal sample;
• a memory module (504) for storing a reference sequence;
• a correlator (506) for correlating the averaged samples with the reference sequence;
• and
• a threshold detection module (507) for comparing a correlation result with a threshold correlation value.