A General Digital Predistortion Linearization Scheme for Hybrid Beamforming System

Abstract

Hybrid beamforming multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) system has attracted a lot of attention in recent years since it significantly reduces the hardware cost compared to the fully digital beamforming system. However, with hybrid beamforming, the one-to-one mapping between the radio frequency (RF) chain and the nonlinear power amplifier (PA) is destroyed. The PA nonlinearity cannot be compensated by conventional digital predistortion (DPD) algorithms. In this article, we propose a novel multiple-input DPD model for hybrid beamforming MIMO systems. An extra digital compensation block is introduced in the feedback path. With the feedback compensation block, the proposed DPD can linearize the PA output signal as well as the aggregated far-field signal. What is more, we propose a DPD estimation algorithm with much reduced complexity. Comparing to existing solutions, the proposed scheme achieves satisfactory performance for hybrid beamforming system. It does not rely on the measurement of the channel or the assumption of massive antennas. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed DPD scheme.