Data Predistortion for Multicarrier Satellite Channels Based on Direct Learning

Abstract

Satellite communication is facing the urgent need of improving data rate and efficiency to compete with the quality of service offered by terrestrial communication systems. An imminent gain, achievable without the need of upgrading current satellite technology, can be obtained by exploiting multicarrier operation at the transponder and using highly efficient modulation schemes. However, on-board multicarrier joint amplification of high order modulation schemes is a critical operation as it brings severe non-linear distortion effects. These distortions increase as the on-board High Power Amplifier (HPA) is operated to yield higher power efficiencies. In this work, we propose novel techniques to implement on ground predistortion that enable multicarrier transmission of highly efficient modulation schemes over satellite channels without impacting infrastructure on the downlink.