Nonlinear Analysis and Digital Pre-Distortion of the SC-FDMA Signals in LTE Uplink System

摘要

Single-carrier frequency division multiple access (SC-FDMA) has become a popular alternative to orthogonal frequency division multiple access (OFDM) in multi-user communication on LTE uplink systems. This is primarily due to the low peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) of SC-FDMA compared to that of OFDM. Long-term evolution (LTE) uses SC-FDMA on the uplink to exploit this PAPR advantage to reduce transmit power amplifier (PA) back-off in mobile user terminals. However, the latest generation of communication systems requires high power efficiency and a large quantity of capacity in transmitting mobile data, bringing out some other critical problems: 1) the nonlinearity of Radio Frequency (RF) power amplifiers inevitably affects the power efficiency. Working beyond the saturation point is the main reason for power amplifiers having nonlinear properties; 2) In order to obtain adequate capacity, wide bandwidth is applied to the latest communication systems. Since in previous systems the pre-distorter would focus on memory-less distortion with relatively narrow bandwidth, this change makes memory distortion become a serious issue, degrading the transmission quality in the wireless communication systems.The intent of this thesis is to present nonlinear analysis of the SC-FDMA Spectrum with the RF power amplifier. Relevant mathematical models were considered and applied to the RF power amplifier in terms of intermodulation products and the third-order intercept point. The equivalent mathematical model is applied for the first time to SC-FDMA signals and with the previous formulation of the PA model, the derivation of the expressions for spectrum regrowth of amplified SC-FDMA signals was first established and finally simulated with Matlab software. The digital pre-distortion (DPD) technology was also applied to SC-FDMA signals for the first time in this thesis. An inverse intermodulation and Autoregressive Moving-Average (IM-ARMA) model was introduced to linearize the PA distortion with memory in the LTE uplink system. The DPD was finally implemented by Matlab R2010b.Conclusions are drawn that amplified power emission levels can be expressed by the form of third-order intercept point (IP_3). The expressions for spectrum regrowth of amplified SC-FDMA signals have been verified for the first time with the comparison of simulation, measurement and calculation results. The effects of third order intermodulation have a greater impact than higher order components with respect to out-of-band emission power levels. Furthermore, the DPD algorithm reduced the spectrum regrowth of SC-FDMA signals by 12 dB. The proposed pre-distorter can effectively solve the distortion problem caused by the memory effect in RF power amplifier.