Estimation and Mapping of the Received Power Level of Digital Signals TV Using Spatial Interpolation Methods

Abstract The signal digitization process of the open television system is still in progress, therefore, the study of the digital signal propagation has great importance so that broadcasters can develop and improve the transmission service. The field measurement of digital signal parameters is one of the most reliable means to analyze the signal propagation in a given area. In this work, received power measurements of a TV station digital signal in the city of Mossoró, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil were performed. The objective is to implement interpolation methods and identify which is the most suitable for the spatial representation of power data in this region through the Mean Error (ME) and Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE) evaluation metrics. A good representation of the received power level contributes to the mapping of greater and lesser intensity of the digital signal in the region. The implementation of the interpolation methods was performed in Surfer® software (Golden Software, LLC), which provides the cross-validation report with the ME and RMSE values associated with each method. The Ordinary Kriging method with exponential variogram model obtained the lowest RMSE value (7.6083) and, therefore, the most adequate estimates.