The present invention relates generally to a system and method for receiving and processing the audio signals for a television broadcast following the Broadcast Television Standards Committee (“BTSC”) standard for composite audio sometimes referred to as Multi-Channel Television Sound (“MTS”), and more particularly to a system and method for implementing the audio receiver functions for a television broadcast receiver as a fully digital solution, which may be integrated as a single digital integrated circuit or performed in multiple integrated circuits, including Digital Signal Processors (“DSPs”). The methods and apparatus may be extended to receiving other composite and modulated broadcast signals.
Generally, in the television art, broadcast television signals include audio signals referred to as a composite audio signal following the standard known as the BTSC standard for audio signals. The audio signal is a composite signal made up of several separable channel signals that are combined into a composite signal and transmitted alongside the broadcast television video signals. The BTSC audio MTS signal was developed to support stereo audio signals for broadcast television reception and includes several individual channels. The BTSC MTS signal is transmitted at a designated carrier frequency as part of the composite broadcast television video signal, as illustrated in
One disadvantage of the prior art approach is that analog signal processing uses various discrete components which are large in utilized circuit board area may exhibit large variations with temperature or process variances are noise sensitive and are not compatible with highly integrated digital circuits that can provide advanced filtering and processing capabilities in very small integrated circuit devices. Complex analog components such as filters, integrated inductors, capacitors, resistors and the like, may be required and these are known to be difficult to build accurately in an integrated form due to process variations, temperature dependent value variations, and the like, as is known by those skilled in the art. An analog receiver for FM demodulation for television audio signals using prior art analog circuitry is shown, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 4,490,680, to Goto, issued Dec. 25, 1984, which is incorporated herein by reference.
Recent advances in the filtering and processing algorithms used with digital signal processors make it highly desirable to perform signal processing completely in digital circuitry, that is, eliminating the analog signal processing circuits of the prior art. Further, the continuing advances in integrated circuit technology, and the availability of highly advanced programmable digital signal processors as known in the art, make signal processing in the digital domain very desirable in terms of cost, speed, and performance as well as circuit area and increased signal to noise ratio performance, eliminating the need for adjustments to compensate for component tolerances, etc.
Thus, a need exists for a purely digital signal processing method and apparatus to receive, demodulate, process and reproduce the composite audio signal for a BTSC standard broadcast television signal. The preferred embodiments and methods of the invention described herein address this need.
These and other problems of the prior art are generally solved or circumvented and technical advantages are generally achieved by preferred embodiments of the present invention, which provide a method and apparatus for performing the demodulation and processing of the audio signal of a television broadcast signal, using purely digital signal processing and circuitry.
In accordance with a preferred embodiment of the present invention, a method for receiving the BTSC MTS audio signal comprises providing an analog-to-digital converter coupled to receive the SIF signal and convert it to a digital signal; providing an FM demodulator function which is a digital circuit and demodulates the composite audio signal from the corresponding FM modulation carrier signal; and providing a digital audio processing function which receives the composite audio signal and separates and reproduces the various MTS channels for use by a receiver. The digital audio processing circuit performs functions including bandpass filtering, decimation functions, demodulation and expansion functions to recover the L+R composite or monaural signal, the L−R or stereo channel, the SAP channel and the professional channels, and to selectively provide corresponding digital audio outputs for the receiver to use. In one preferred embodiment, the digital FM demodulator is a circuit and the digital audio processing functions are provided by a commercially available programmable DSP such as are known to those skilled in the art.
In another preferred embodiment an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (“ASIC”) or a semi-custom integrated circuit may implement the FM demodulator. In another preferred embodiment, the digital FM demodulator function and the digital signal processing function may be combined into a single digital function using ASIC or semi-custom integrated circuit design technologies, and using DSP “macros” or other known techniques for the digital audio processing, to enable the integration of the two functions on a single IC. In another preferred embodiment, the FM demodulator and the digital audio function may be performed with ASIC technology in a single dedicated integrated circuit instead of using a programmable DSP function; those functions are then performed by dedicated hardware circuitry.
In accordance with another preferred embodiment of the present invention, a system for receiving and decoding the BTSC MTS audio signal comprises a receiver for receiving the SIF analog signal, an Analog to Digital Converter or (“ADC”) for converting the SIF signal, a digital bandpass filter receiving the quantized SIF signal and down sampling, or decimating the quantized signal to achieve a lower sampling frequency. The digitized signal is then coupled to a splitter and a local numeric oscillator is used to develop in-phase and quadrature phase, or “I” and “Q” signals. Low pass filters implemented in typical digital signal processing form receive the 1 and 0 signals. The I and Q signals are each then processed using differentiation and normalization circuits and combined to produce a digital composite audio signal.
The digital composite audio signal is coupled to a decimiation circuit to reduce the sampling frequency and to make the signal processing computations easier and less costly in terms of silicon area. The composite audio signal is then coupled to a digital audio processor.
Low-pass and band-pass filters are implemented using a programmable digital signal processor chip, a macro or DSP block in an ASIC, or dedicated hardware circuitry. The composite audio signal is processed by the hardware to separate the SAP channel from the remaining channels. Decimation circuitry is used to process the L+R main stereo channel and the L−R channel is separated using a high pass filter. The remaining L+R signal is then filtered using a low pass filter while the pilot signal is separated using a convolution and a digital phase locked loop, or PLL. The resulting pilot frequency is used to demodulate the amplitude modulated L−R channel which is again decimated after demodulation, and the L−R channel is then expanded. A decimation circuit followed by a fixed de-emphasis circuit operates on the main channel, and a channel selection de-multiplexer receives the three channel signals: SAP, L−R, L+R and selectively outputs monaural, SAP, or stereo L and R audio channels. A sample rate conversion or SRC circuit operates on the output of the de-multiplexer after the selection to place the signals in proper form for digital audio and, finally, the SRC circuit outputs the selected audio signals for use in producing the sound for the television system.
In another embodiment of the present invention, an existing digital FM demodulation approach is advantageously combined with the enhanced digital audio processing of the present invention to provide an all-digital circuitry audio receiver for BTSC audio signals.
An advantage of a preferred embodiment of the present invention is that the use of the digital FM demodulator, in combination with the enhanced digital audio processing function, allows the two functions to be integrated into a single digital integrated circuit or allows the use of a commercially available digital signal processor with a highly integrated FM demodulator which is highly linear and is cost effective to implement. The digital integrated circuits exhibit better performance than the analog circuits of the prior art over a wide variety of conditions and received input signal quality. The ability to integrate the functions together enable a lower cost and smaller circuit board area solution than the prior art approaches.
A further advantage of a preferred embodiment of the present invention is that the preferred digital audio function is highly optimized, uses reduced rate processing to reduce cost and complexity, and benefits from the increased performance of the digital processing block. Use of a programmable DSP allows additional functions to be easily incorporated into the circuitry in the future without the need for costly redesigns or board or system changes.
For a more complete understanding of the present invention and the advantages thereof, reference is now made to the following descriptions taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawing, in which:
The drawings and illustrations are not to scale, are presented as representative and for enhancing the reader's comprehension of the preferred embodiments, are not limiting, and are exemplary preferred embodiments but are not the only embodiments contemplated as part of the invention and covered by the appended claims.
The making and using of the presently preferred embodiments are discussed in detail below. It should be appreciated, however, that the present invention provides many applicable inventive concepts that can be embodied in a wide variety of specific contexts. The specific embodiments discussed are merely illustrative of specific ways to make and use the invention and do not limit the scope of the invention.
The present invention will be described with respect to preferred embodiments in a specific context, namely an all-digital receiver for BTSC MTS audio signals for broadcast television reception. The invention may also be advantageously applied to other receivers for FM modulated composite signals.
With reference now to
In system 500, the incoming audio signal SIF is coupled to an analog to digital converter 501 which may be, for example, a pipelined analog to digital converter or other ADC circuit as is known in the art. The sampling rate and the number of bits of resolution may vary but it is typically an advantage to use a low bit count ADC with a fast sampling rate, for ease of computation and implementation.
The quantized signal is now output from the ADC and input to a digital FM demodulator 503. This circuitry may be implemented in an integrated circuit such as an ASIC or gate array or semi-custom integrated circuit or otherwise as discrete components. The details of the operation of this circuit will be provided below but the circuit receives the quantized SIF signal from the ADC and outputs a digital form of the composite audio signal, removing the FM modulation carrier by a process of demodulation as is described further below.
Decimator 505 then decimates the composite audio signal. This decimation function downsamples the quantized signal, that is, the number of samples per time interval is reduced and, thus, the frequency of arriving samples is reduced to enhance the efficiency of the filtering and processing steps to follow by reducing the rate at which the various computations have to be performed between samples.
The digital composite audio signal is then input to digital audio processing circuit 507. As will be further described, the digital audio processing circuit 507 will separate the various signals in the composite audio digital signal into the channels of
In
Numeric controlled oscillator 605 is used to drive sine waveform generator 607 and cosine waveform generator 609 which generate the sine and cosine waveforms used in the in-phase and quadrature-phase component extraction operations to follow.
Multiplier 611 impresses the sine waveform onto the incoming signal and outputs the in-phase, or “I” component signal. Multiplier 613 likewise impresses the cosine waveform onto the incoming signal and outputs the quadrature-phase, or “Q” component signal.
A transform function is applied to both the I and Q signals to further perform the digital FM demodulation. Delay element 614 is used with adder 615 and differentiator 617 to generate two sums, I+Z−1(I) and I−Z−1(I). The differentiator 617 is used to approximate the derivative of signal I with respect to time. The adder 615 serves as a low-pass filter whose delay matches with the differentiator 617. Similarly, a symmetric transfer function is applied to the Q signals to generate two sums, Q and Z−1(Q) are combined to form Q+Z−1(Q) and Q−Z−1(Q).
Processing continues by combining these four sums into four product terms, multiplier 625 combines Q+Z−1(Q) with I−Z−1(I), symmetrical multiplier 631 combines with I+Z−1(I) and Q−Z−1(Q), multiplier 627 squares terms I+Z−1(I). Finally, symmetrical multiplier 629 squares Q+Z−1(Q).
These four product terms are then combined. Adder 635 sums the inner squared products, and adder 637 subtracts the outer products. Signal Y is then the sum of the terms (I+Z−1(I))2 and (Q+Z−1(Q))2, while signal X is the difference (Q+Z−1(Q))*(I−Z−1(I))−(I+Z−1(I))*(Q−Z−1(Q)).
Finally, a ratio is taken by divider 641 which divides signal X by signal Y and outputs the digital composite audio signal, the discrete components due to the FM modulation carrier signal having thus been removed. An FM digital demodulator using a look-up table divider to perform this division is described by co-pending U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/110,032, filed Apr. 20, 2005, (“Hardware Divider”), which is incorporated above. In this approach, the digital divider block first estimates the reciprocal of an input signal (denominator) by use of a look-up table, the first estimate is then quickly improved by an approximation algorithm which provides an improved estimate of the reciprocal in a single iteration, and then the reciprocal is multiplied by the numerator, thus, performing the division. The digital divider thus implemented is rapid enough to allow real-time calculation of the division as is required by the processing requirements for this application.
In circuit 700, which may be implemented as a dedicated hardware circuit, or as functions implemented as programming steps in software executing on a programmable DSP or a combination of these two approaches, a preferred implementation of digital audio processing circuit 507 of
The main stereo signal is also isolated from the composite audio input signal; this signal is located in the lower part of the frequency spectrum of the composite audio signal as seen in
The delay element 723 is used to derive a delayed version of the main stereo signal which includes the L+R and L−R signals, to differentiator 725 with the delay matched to the high pass filter 715. Differentiator 725 subtracts the stereo L−R signal from the main signal which includes the pilot signal and the L+R signal. Main low pass filter 733 simultaneously receives the delayed signal and using another low pass filter, isolates the L+R signal which lies at the lowest part of the frequency spectrum of the composite audio signal, as seen in
Finally the main L+R signal is also downsampled by decimator 735 which feeds the de-emphasis circuit 737 as is known in the art, and the output of the de-emphasis circuit is the L+R signal input into the de-multiplexer 709.
As depicted in
Finally the L and R signals (identical for the monaural TV set, though none are presently produced) are output to the system for use in producing the audio sound. In addition, the digital audio processor may output a professional channel output, which may be decomposed from the composite audio signal in another preferred embodiment of the invention.
Although the present invention and its advantages have been described in detail, it should be understood that various changes, substitutions and alterations can be made herein without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims. For example, many of the features and functions discussed above can be implemented in software, hardware, or firmware, or a combination thereof. As another example, it will be readily understood by those skilled in the art that the various frequencies and the downsampling and expanding steps may be varied while remaining within the scope of the present invention.
Moreover, the scope of the present application is not intended to be limited to the particular embodiments of the process, machine, manufacture, composition of matter, means, methods, and steps described in the specification. As one of ordinary skill in the art will readily appreciate from the disclosure of the present invention, processes, machines, manufacture, compositions of matter, means, methods, or steps, presently existing or later to be developed that perform substantially the same function or achieve substantially the same result as the corresponding embodiments described herein, may be utilized according to the present invention. Accordingly, the appended claims are intended to include within their scope such processes, machines, manufacture, compositions of matter, means, methods, or steps.
This application relates to the following co-pending and commonly assigned patent application Ser. No. 11/110,032 filed Apr. 20, 2005, entitled Hardware Divider, which application is hereby incorporated herein by reference.