Comparison between digital and analog predistortion for satellite communications

Satellite communication channels are equipped with high power amplifier (HPA). The drawback of this amplifier is that it is highly nonlinear, which makes the use of highly bandwidth-efficient modulation techniques unpractical. There are several techniques that are used in the literature that reduces the effect of the nonlinearity without the need to backoff; these include digital and analog predistortion. This paper presents a comparison between these two techniques, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of each scheme.