Enhancing Radio Frequency System Performance by Digital Signal Processing

Abstract: In this thesis measurement systems for the purpose of characterization of radio frequency power amplifiers are studied. Methods to increase the speed, accuracy, bandwidth, as well as to reduce the sampling requirements and testing cost are presented. A method intended for signal shaping with respect to peak to-average ratio reduction and its effects-improvements on the radio frequency front-end performance is investigated.A time domain measurement system intended for fast and accurate measurements and characterization of radio frequency power amplifiers is discussed. An automated, fast and accurate technique for power and frequency sweep measurements is presented. Multidimensional representation of measured figure of merits is evaluated for its importance on the production-testing phase of power amplifiers.A technique to extend the digital bandwidth of a measurement system is discussed. It is based on the Zhu-Frank generalized sampling theorem which decreases the requirements on the sampling rate of the measurement system. Its application for power amplifiers behavioral modeling is discussed and evaluated experimentally.A general method for designing multitone for the purpose of out-of-band characterization of nonlinear radio frequency modules using harmonic sampling is presented. It has an application with the validation of power amplifiers behavioral models in their out-of-band frequency spectral support when extracted from undersampled data.A method for unfolding the frequency spectrum of undersampled wideband signals is presented. It is of high relevance to state-of-the-art radio frequency measurement systems which capture repetitive waveform based on a sampling rate that violates the Nyquist constraint. The method is presented in a compact form, it eliminates ambiguities caused by folded frequency spectra standing outside the Nyquist band, and is relevant for calibration matters.A convex optimization reduction-based method of peaks-to-average ratio of orthogonal frequency division multiplexing signals is presented and experimentally validated for a wireless local area network system. Improvements on the radio frequency power amplifier level are investigated with respect to power added efficiency, output power, in-band and out-of-band errors. The influence of the power distribution in the excitation signal on power amplifier performance was evaluated.