Signal shaping for peak-power and dynamics reduction in transmission schemes employing precoding

Precoding, i.e., nonlinear pre-equalization, at the transmitter side has been proved to be a very efficient strategy for channel equalization in single-carrier digital transmission schemes. It enables the application of coded modulation in a seamless fashion. A drawback of precoding is that the signal at the input of the decision device exhibits a huge dynamic range. Based on dynamics shaping, a combined precoding/shaping technique introduced in the paper by Fischer et al. (1995), a new shaping strategy is developed in this paper. This technique enables a flexible tradeoff among: (1) reduction of the average transmit power; (2) avoidance of peaks in the transmit signal in order to facilitate line driver implementation; and (3) restriction of the maximum amplitude at the receiver side to a prescribed value. Over a wide range, all three demands can be met simultaneously. As the scheme is fully compatible with Tomlinson-Harashima (1971, 1972) precoding, it can replace the precoder even in existing and standardized schemes. Simulation results for a typical digital subscriber line scenario show the achievable gains.