Behaviour of a TWTA with a single or multicarrier input signal for telecommunication applications

This paper deals with the evaluation of the traditional travelling wave tube amplifier (TWTA) output power model completed with an associated power efficiency estimation with multi carrier signal. A 120 W Ka band linearised TWTA is used to propose a full comparison between simulated and measured results concerning up to four modulated carriers as an input signal. Three different regions of output operating point are proposed, each correlated to a growing complexity needed in signal simulation from CW to all multiplex composed by modulated carriers.