High Power Amplifier Nonlinearity Models and Digital Predistortion Techniques in DVB-S2X.

Energy efficiency is a must in satellite communications and highly nonlinear High Power Amplifiers (HPAs) are used. Nonlinearities must be mitigated, specially in use cases like Direct to Home Broadcasting where the amplifier is operated close to the saturation point. There are various choices to compensate nonlinearity. This paper analyzes predistortion techniques in view of different HPA models available in the literature. The paper discusses possible predistortion parametres and evaluates the impact of predistortion and High Power Amplifier modeling on the DVB-S2X reception thresholds using a DVB-S2X standard simulation platform. The simulation results show that that different types of HPAs described with significantly different models present similar performance metrics after applying carefully-tuned predistortion techniques.