PA Linearization by Digital Predistortion and Peak-to-Average Power Ratio Reduction in Software Defined Radios

Abstract

Digital predistortion (DPD), based on complex-valued memory polynomials (MP), is established as an efficient method for power amplifier (PA) linearization. The DPD facilitates compliance of the telecommunication infrastructure to strict standard specifications (transmit spectrum mask (TSM), error vector magnitude (EVM), bit error rate (BER), [Formula: see text]) by making PA more linear, while at the same time reduces the running cost of the wireless infrastructure (at both Base Transceiver Station (BTS) and User Equipment (UE) sides) by making PA more power efficient. Even when DPD is utilized, signals with high peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) produce out-of-band PA spectrum emission due to intermodulation products affecting all above-mentioned critical standard specified parameters. The novelty proposed in this paper is as follows. PA is restricted to operate within “reasonably above” PA linear region using PAPR reduction technique. The residual nonlinearity is taken care of by DPD. The combination of DPD and PAPR PA linearization methods is implemented on software-defined radio board. The necessary steps for efficient PA linearization are presented, compensating both out-of-band and in-band signal distortions. We achieved EVM = 2.0%, ACPR [Formula: see text]50[Formula: see text]dBc, at 10[Formula: see text]W LTE modulated PA output, antenna point and PA output power of 39.5[Formula: see text]dBm.