A new analog predistortion criterion with application to high efficiency digital radio links

Describes a new approach for designing analog cubic predistorters in view of minimizing nonlinear distortion introduced by the high power amplifier (HPA) in microwave radio links. The approach is based on a global mean squared error minimization between the input to the predistorter and the output of the power amplifier, rather than on the elimination of the cubic term. In this manner, two advantages are obtained. Firstly, the off-band distortion terms are reduced so that it is possible to eliminate the HF transmission filter. Secondly, the interference produced by the nonlinear distortion can be uniformly distributed over the entire constellation so that it is possible to reduce the back-off value of the HPA. Results of the application of the method proposed to some high spectrally efficient QAM systems, such as the 512-QAM system, are presented.