Mitigation of Inter-Carrier Interference (ICI) in Mobile DVB-T2 Technology Using Zero Forcing Equalization

Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiple Access (OFDM) is the transmission mechanism employed in DVB-T2 digital broadcasting systems. However, under mobility conditions, Doppler shift becomes a major factor limiting OFDM performance. The Doppler effect induces Carrier Frequency Offset (CFO), which disrupts the orthogonality among subcarriers and generates Inter-Carrier Interference (ICI). This issue causes frequency mismatches between the transmitter and receiver. In this study, a DVB-T2 system configuration is used with 2k mode, guard interval 268, cyclic prefix 1/4, and 64-QAM modulation. To evaluate mobility effects, simulations were performed with maximum Doppler frequency variations ranging from 2.87 Hz to 40.18 Hz and SNR ranges from 0 dB to 40 dB. On the receiver side, equalization was applied using a Zero Forcing Equalizer. Simulation results indicate that without equalization, the BER remains approximately 0.5 across all Doppler variations. Conversely, with the application of Zero Forcing Equalizer, BER decreases significantly at SNR ≥ 20 dB. This method proves effective in mitigating ICI in DVB-T2 systems under mobility conditions, achieving an average performance improvement of 98.42% with BER approaching zero at low to moderate Doppler frequencies.