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PDFDigital Audio Broadcasting (DAB) is a digital broadcasting standard that began as a European research project during the 1980's. It has evolved into what is commonly referred to as Digital Radio, and is predominately used in Europe at this time. DAB involves taking an analog signal, digitizing it so that it may be compressed using audio codecs such as MP2, and then performing digital modulation before transmitting the broadcast.
DAB was invented to address key limitations of the aging FM and AM radio broadcasts. In particular, DAB allows more stations per spectrum which results in more listening options for customers. It also offers better immunity to noise, crosstalk, and other forms of interference which makes it ideal for mobile applications. DAB also offers equivalent or better audio quality than FM radio thanks to reception integrity that does not begin to degrade until the signal drops below a certain power threshold. This is different from FM radio in which reception quality decreases in a linear relationship with the power of the received signal.
In 2007, an upgraded version of DAB (simply named DAB+) was released. DAB+ offers improved audio quality via the use of the AAC+ audio codec and implementation of Reed-Solomon error correction.
Additional References:
World DAB Forum
Refer to the RF & Communications Resources page for additional information about RF terminology, fundamentals, and National Instruments RF products.
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