A study of digital predistortion of analog amplifiers

This report presents a study of digital predistortion of analog amplifiers and the simulation of a digital predistorter. Predistortion can be of significant benefit in wireless transmitters. As power consumption is becoming a greater concern, digital predistortion helps maximize power efficiency of power amplifiers by allowing them to operate in their most efficient regions while not corrupting data. Many wireless standards use channels with frequency carriers in close proximity to other channels. This leads to the necessity to ensure that spectral regrowth, which adds interference to neighboring frequencies, does not occur. Digital predistortion is a promising method to achieve this. Some major aspects of a predistortion system are discussed. These include the analog or digital predistorter implementation, simulating designs with memory or memoryless power amplifiers, baseband or high frequency predistortion, and training a predistorter.