Efficient power amplification is inherently a non linear operation that introduces unwanted interference in the amplified signal. Strong inter-symbol interference is generated when the amplifier non linearity is combined with channel memory effects. Further, signals with very high peak to average power ratio, typical of multiple carrier systems, are even more sensitive to the non linearities resulting in severe distortion effects. Signal pre-clipping (crest factor reduction) and predistortion are conventional countermeasure techniques to reduce the generated non linear distortion and improve power and spectral efficiency. In this work, novel optimization methods for predistortion and pre-clipping are analytically derived for a general non-linear communication channel with memory. A combined architecture in which crest factor reduction is followed by signal predistortion is proposed and the parameters are estimated resorting to iterative algorithms based on least squares method. Performance evaluation of the estimation techniques shows the effectiveness of the derived algorithms and significant gain compared to previously known methods.

A digital predistortion (DPD) scheme is presented for non‐linear distortion mitigation in multi‐carrier satellite communication channels. The proposed DPD has a multiple‐input multiple‐output architecture similar to data DPD schemes. However, it enhances the mitigation performance of data DPDs using a multi‐rate processing algorithm to achieve spectrum broadening of non‐linear operators. Compared to single carrier (single‐input single‐output) signal (waveform) DPD schemes, the proposed DPD has lower digital processing rate reducing the required hardware cost of the predistorter. The proposed DPD outperforms, in total degradation, both data and signal DPD schemes. Further, it performs closest to a channel bound described by an ideally mitigated channel with limited maximum output power.

Joint on-board amplification of multiple carriers reduces hardware and weight, enabling cost-efficient satellite architectures. However, on-board power amplification is inherently a non-linear operation and the distortion effects drastically increase when the high-power amplifier (HPA) is operated in multiple-carrier mode due to the generated inter-modulation products. In order to achieve the desired on-board power efficiency and to reduce the non-linear distortion, specific countermeasures need to be put in place. Emerging multi-gateway satellite systems where, in the most general case, each carrier is uplinked independently from a different gateway, would gain further flexibility by adopting a multicarrier architecture. While advanced predistortion techniques are already available for the single-gateway scenario, no solution has been proposed for the multi-gateway multicarrier scenario. In this work, we propose novel distributed predistortion techniques to improve spectral and power efficiency in multi-gateway non-linear satellite channels. Further, we analyze the multiple-carrier predistortion parameter estimation error with respect to noise sensitivity, proposing a robust version of the indirect learning method. Distributed processing becomes sensitive to synchronization amongst the actors, and we present an evaluation of the sensitivity of proposed techniques to imperfections.

Current satellite communication architectures can be potentially improved by applying multicarrier power amplification. Joint on-board amplification of multiple carriers reduces hardware and weight, enabling cost-efficient satellite architectures. However, on board power amplification is inherently a non-linear operation, whose distortion effects drastically increase when the high power amplifier (HPA) is operated in multiple carrier mode due to the generated inter-modulation products. In order to achieve the desired on-board power efficiency and to reduce the non-linear distortion, specific countermeasures need to be put in place. In this work we provide a novel data predistortion technique for multiple carriers satellite channel based on look up table (LUT) for high throughput applications. In contrast to known single carrier LUT techniques, the entries of the table are obtained by pursuing an analytical approach exploiting channel model and implementing recursive least squares techniques (RLS). A novel method to reduce the number of LUT entries based on LUT partitioning is proposed. Considerable performance gains over standard polynomial based predistortion are realized by the proposed technique.

With the growing application of high order modulation techniques, the mitigation of the non-linear distortions introduced by the power amplification, has become a major issue in telecommunication. More sophisticated techniques to counteract the strong generated interferences need to be investigated in order to achieve the desired power and spectral efficiency. This work proposes a novel approach for the definition of a transmitter technique (predistortion) that outperforms the standard methods with respect to both performance and efficiency.