1728results about "Amplifier modifications to reduce non-linear distortion" patented technology

Methods of monitoring and evaluating the status of a tumor undergoing treatment includes monitoring in vivo at least one physiological parameter associated with a tumor in a subject undergoing treatment, transmitting data from an in situ located sensor to a receiver external of the subject, analyzing the transmitted data, repeating the monitoring and transmitting steps at sequential points in time and evaluating a treatment strategy. The method provides dynamic tracking of the monitored parameters over time. The method can also include identifying in a substantially real time manner when conditions are favorable for treatment and when conditions are unfavorable for treatment and can verify or quantify how much of a known drug dose or radiation dose was actually received at the tumor. The method can include remote transmission from a non-clinical site to allow oversight of the tumor's condition even during non-active treatment periods (in between active treatments). The disclosure also includes monitoring systems with in situ in vivo biocompatible sensors and telemetry based operations and related computer program products.

The invention is a method of correcting distortion in a power amplifier in a transmitter. The method includes applying an input time varying modulated data signal to the power amplifier which outputs an amplified time varying modulated data signal which is an amplification of the input time varying modulated data signal; storing samples of the input time varying modulated data signal; storing samples of the output amplified time varying data signal; using the stored input and output time varying modulated samples to provide a processor implemented model with parameters representing a non-linear characteristic of the power amplifier without the use of any polynomials; and producing predistortion coefficients.

A method for a combined adaptive digital pre-distorter and pre-equalizer apparatus in single- and/or multiple-link hopping radio systems including hopping among a plurality of radio links to transmit variable-length bursts of radio signals on the plurality of radio links. Further, pre-distorting amplitude and phase of transmitted signal constellations based on the inverse AM-to-AM and AM-to-PM characteristics and the operating conditions of the high-power amplifier, respectively. Further, pre-equalizing amplitude and group-delay variations of the transmit RF radio using the pre-stored estimated complex tap coefficient of the pre-equalizer under different frequency bands.

An amplifier system is provided that switches between a linear mode of operation, an envelope tracking mode of operation and a polar mode of operation. The amplifier system switches between modes of operation based upon a characteristic of an input signal relative to a first threshold level and a second threshold level. A mode selector selects the operation mode by transmitting an amplitude modulated signal plus a variable headroom voltage to a supply terminal of a power amplifier during the envelope tracking mode, an amplitude modulated signal to the supply terminal and phase modulated input signal during the polar mode and a substantially constant amplitude signal to the supply terminal during the linear mode.

The invention relates to a method and system for wideband digital pre-distortion linearization, which is used to overcome the influence of memory effect in radio frequency power amplifier, to expand digital pre-distortion linearization bandwidth, and to improve digital pre-distortion linearization performance. The method and system can get an in-band pre-distortion signal and an out-of-band pre-distortion signal according to the characteristic parameter of the amplifier; the in-band pre-distortion signal is up-converted and the up-converted signal is added to the out-of-band pre-distortion signal, which is not up-converted, then the combined signal is inputted to the power amplifier as an input signal; a part of the output signal from the power amplifier, serving as a feedback signal, can be compared with the original input signal, and the characteristic parameter of the amplifier for generating the in-band pre-distortion signal and the out-of-band pre-distortion signal is adaptively regulated according to the comparison result, so that the waveform of time domain or the frequency domain of the feedback signal can be close to that of the original input signal as much as possible.

Systems and methods are provided for determining and providing an appropriate variable voltage supply to a power amplifier. A power amplifier is operative to amplify an input signal. A digital buffer stores a copy of the input signal representing a predetermined interval of time. An envelope profiler analyzes the buffered interval of the input signal and determines an appropriate supply signal profile for the power amplifier over the predetermined time interval. A supply control provides a supply signal according to the determined profile.

The present invention includes methods and devices to apply predistortion to correct nonlinearities of a power amplifier in an OFDM symbol transmission system. More particularly, predistortion is patterned to take into account clipping of symbols and to match an effective input range of the predistorter with an average power output of the power amplifier. This invention may be applied to a variety of standards utilizing OFDM technology, including IEEE 802.11a, Hiperlan/2 and MMAC.

An amplifier circuit includes a power amplifier biased for saturated mode operation, and a controllable current source to provide supply current to the power amplifier. The controllable current source effects desired amplitude modulation of the output signal from the power amplifier by modulating the supply current it provides responsive to an amplitude information signal. In one or more embodiments, the current source includes a circuit that is configured to adjust one or more transmitter operating parameters responsive to detecting changes in the effective DC resistance of the power amplifier. For example, the circuit may generate a compensation signal that reduces the effective DC resistance responsive to detecting that the effective DC resistance has undesirably increased. By way of non-limiting examples, such compensation may be effected by changing a current mirror, an amplifier-to-antenna impedance matching, an amplifier bias or device size, or imposing some form of transmit signal back-off.

Power amplifier arrangements, methods, and software arranged to receive a power input which is voltage-modulated responsive to at least one control signal representative of the data signal. The data input to the power amplifier is pre-distorted and the resulting power amplification is substantially linear. The arrangement may be used in wireless base station transmitters, but is not limited to such applications. Improved data transmission services are also provided which make use of such power amplifiers.

A power calculating and amplitude limitation judging portion 13 calculates the power value x of the digital quadrature baseband signal I, Q from a transmission data generator 1, and compares the power value x with a power threshold value y set by a threshold value setting portion 14 to judge whether amplitude limitation is needed or not. An amplitude maximum limiting portion 12 subjects the quadrature baseband signal from the transmission data generator 1 to the amplitude maximum value limitation based on the judgment result in the power calculating and amplitude limitation judging portion 13. Thereafter, the digital quadrature baseband signal which has been subjected to the amplitude maximum value limitation by the amplitude maximum value limiting portion 12 is subjected to the distortion compensation using complex multiplication based on the distortion compensation data by a non-linear distortion compensation calculator 2.

An amplification architecture or system is provided having a multiple amplifier system that switches modes of operation between operation in a component mode and a composite mode based on a characteristic of an input signal relative to a threshold level. In the component mode, the components of the input signal are employed to different terminals of the multiple amplifier system that provide a reconstructed amplified representation of the input signal. In the composite mode, the input signal is amplified to provide an amplified representation of the input signal.

An amplifier system is provided that switches between operation in a polar mode and a linear mode based on a characteristic of an input signal relative to a threshold level. The system operates as a polar amplifier in the polar mode, and as a linear amplifier in the linear mode. A mode selector controls whether polar components of the input signal are sent to a power amplifier or whether a composite signal is amplified.

A system for digitally linearizing the nonlinear behaviour of RF high efficiency amplifiers employing baseband predistortion techniques is disclosed. The system provides additive or multiplicative predistortion of the digital quadrature (I/Q) input signal in order to minimize distortion at the output of the amplifier. The predistorter uses a discrete-time polynomial kernel to model the inverse transfer characteristic of the amplifier, providing separate and simultaneous compensation for nonlinear static distortion, linear dynamic distortion and nonlinear dynamic effects including reactive electrical memory effects. Compensation for higher order reactive and thermal memory effects is embedded in the nonlinear dynamic compensation operation of the predistorter in an IIR filter bank. A predistortion controller periodically monitors the output of the amplifier and compares it to the quadrature input signal to compute estimates of the residual output distortion of the amplifier. Output distortion estimates are used to adaptively compute the values of the parameters of the predistorter in response to changes in the amplifier's operating conditions (temperature drifts, changes in modulation input bandwidth, variations in drive level, aging, etc). The predistortion parameter values computed by the predistortion controller are stored in non-volatile memory and used in the polynomial digital predistorter. The digital predistortion system of the invention may provide broadband linearization of highly nonlinear and highly efficient RF amplification circuits including, but not limited to, dynamic load modulation amplifiers.

The invention relates to a method of preparing signals (X and Y) to be compared to establish predistortion at the input of an amplifier (12), the signals comprising a signal (X) before amplification and a signal (Y) after amplification by said amplifier. Preparation includes time aligning (22) the signal before amplification (X) with the signal after amplification (Y) before using them to establish said predistortion. The invention preferably operates in two stages, namely a stage of coarse time alignment, in which the signal before amplification (X) is subjected to a time delay comprising an integer number of first time units, and a stage of fine time alignment, in which a delay or advance value of a fraction of the first time unit is determined.

A high linearity Doherty power amplifier with phase delay generation and control via passive and active components. In one embodiment, phase delay generation and control is implemented by an active phase shifter comprising a lower differential unit for generating a first differential output signal, an upper differential unit for generating a second differential output signal, and a phase control unit for tuning a phase difference between the first and second differential output signals within a phase tolerance. In addition, to improve efficiency and linearity characteristics, the power amplifier receives a voltage control signal to bias a supplemental amplifier so that the power amplifier operates in a Doherty mode in a low output power range and in a non-Doherty mode in a high output power range.

Optimization methods via various circuital arrangements for amplifier with variable supply power are presented. In one embodiment, a switch can be controlled to include or exclude a feedback network in a feedback path to the amplifier to adjust a response of the amplifier dependent on a region of operation of the amplifier arrangement (e.g. linear region or compression region).

A system for digitally linearizing the nonlinear behaviour of RF high efficiency amplifiers employing baseband predistortion techniques is disclosed. The system provides additive or multiplicative predistortion of the digital quadrature (I/Q) input signal in order to minimize distortion at the output of the amplifier. The predistorter uses a discrete-time polynomial kernel to model the inverse transfer characteristic of the amplifier, providing separate and simultaneous compensation for nonlinear static distortion, linear dynamic distortion and nonlinear dynamic effects including reactive electrical memory effects. Compensation for thermal memory effects also is embedded in the nonlinear dynamic compensation operation of the predistorter and is implemented parametrically using an autoregressive dynamics tracking mechanism. A predistortion controller periodically monitors the output of the amplifier and compares it to the quadrature input signal to compute estimates of the residual output distortion of the amplifier. Output distortion estimates are used to adaptively compute the values of the parameters of the predistorter in response to changes in the amplifier's operating conditions (temperature drifts, changes in modulation input bandwidth, variations in drive level, aging, etc). The predistortion parameter values computed by the predistortion controller are stored in non-volatile memory and used in the polynomial digital predistorter. The digital predistortion system of the invention may provide broadband linearization of highly nonlinear and highly efficient RF amplification circuits including, but not limited to, dynamic load modulation amplifiers.

A power amplifier controller controls a power amplifier and is coupled to a polar modulator. The polar modulator generates an amplitude component and a phase-modulated component of the desired RF modulated signal, and outputs to the power amplifier controller. The power amplifier controller regenerates a combined phase and amplitude modulated RF signal to generate an input signal to a power amplifier by adjusting the gain of a VGA based on the amplitude component of the desired RF modulated signal. Concurrently, the power amplifier controller both controls an adjusted supply voltage to the PA and adjusts the gain of the VGA based upon an amplitude correction signal or amplitude error signal.

A system is provided for substantially reducing variation in AM to PM distortion of a power amplifier caused by variations in RF drive power and temperature. The system includes power control circuitry and power amplifier circuitry. The power amplifier circuitry includes an input amplifier stage and at least one additional amplifier stage coupled in series with the input amplifier stage. The power control circuitry provides a first supply voltage to the input amplifier stage based on a control signal such that the first supply voltage has a predetermined DC offset with respect to the control signal. The first supply voltage is provided such that the predetermined DC offset substantially reduces variations in the AM to PM distortion of the power amplifier due to variations in radio frequency (RF) drive power.

Systems, methods, and devices relating to the provision of deliberate predistortion to an input signal to compensate for distortions introduced by an amplifier subsystem. An input signal is received by a signal processing system which includes a predistortion subsystem. The input signal is decomposed and the fragments are then predistorted by the predistortion subsystem by applying a deliberate predistortion to the fragments. The predistorted fragments are then separately processed and recombined to arrive at the system output signal. The predistortion subsystem adaptively adjusts based on characteristics of the system output signal. Also, the predistortion subsystem is equipped with a control system that is state based—the state of the predistortion subsystem is dependent upon the prevailing conditions and, when required, the control system switches the state of the predistortion subsystem. A feedback signal, a replica of the system output signal, is used in updating lookup table entries used to determine the predistortion.

Systems and methods relating to the provision of gain, phase and delay adjustments to signals to be used by a predistortion subsystem. A portion of an input signal is delayed by delay elements prior to being received by the predistortion subsystem. The delayed input signal portion is also received by a feedback signal processing subsystem that adjusts the gain and phase of the feedback signal based on the delayed input signal portion. The adjusted feedback signal is used, along with the delayed portion of the input signal, to determine an appropriate predistortion modification to be applied to the input signal.

The technique of amplifier sharing is implemented in a system designed to accommodate transmit diversity. In one embodiment of the invention, the amplifiers are shared 1) to amplify a first and a second diversity-encoded signal, each of which represents the information a first signal that is to be transmitted using transmit diversity, and 2) to amplify a second signal to be transmitted without using transmit diversity. The first and second diversity-encoded signals are used to form a first and a second composite signal. Each composite signal is amplified in a different one of two power amplifiers. Each amplified composite signal is then used to form an amplified first diversity-encoded signal and an amplified second diversity-encoded signal. The first and second composite signals can also be formed using the second signal. Each composite signal is then amplified in a different one of the two power amplifiers and the two amplified composite signals are used to form an amplified second signal. In another embodiment of the invention, the first and second composite signals can be formed in the digital domain. Each composite signal is digitally pre-distorted and then modulated onto a transmission frequency signal, such as an RF signal. Each pre-distorted composite signal is then amplified in the respective amplifier.

Methods and apparatus are provided for substantially reducing and/or canceling nonlinearities of any order in circuits, devices, and systems such as amplifiers and mixers. In particular, methods and apparatus are provided for substantially reducing and/or canceling third order nonlinearities in circuits, devices, and systems such as amplifiers and mixers. A first coupler is used to split an input signal into two equal-amplitude in-phase components, each component is processed by two nonlinear devices with different nonlinearities, and a final combiner, such as a 180-degree hybrid, recombines the processed signals 180 degrees out of phase and substantially reduces and/or cancels the undesired nonlinear distortion components arising due to nonlinearities in the nonlinear devices.

Systems, methods, and devices relating to the provision of deliberate predistortion to an input signal to compensate for distortions introduced by an amplifier subsystem. An input signal is received by a predistortion subsystem which applies deliberate predistortions to the input signal to arrive at a predistorted signal. The predistorted signal is received by an amplifier subsystem which decomposes the signal, processes the decomposed signal, and then recombines the components to arrive at a system output signal. The predistortion subsystem adaptively adjusts the predistortions based on characteristics of the system output signal. A feedback signal, a replica of the system output signal, is used in updating lookup table entries used to determine the predistortion.

A transmission signal and a pilot signal are predistorted by a digital predistorter 13 by use of a power-series model, and the predistorted output is converted by a digital-analog converter 14 to an analog signal. The analog signal is up converted by a frequency converter 15 to an RF-band signal, which is transmitted after being power-amplified by a Doherty amplifier 16. The pilot signal is extracted by a pilot signal extractor 17 from the output from the Doherty amplifier, and the extracted pilot signal is down converted by a frequency converter 18 to a baseband signal. The baseband pilot signal is converted by an analog-digital converter 19 to a digital pilot signal. A control part 21 detects an odd-order distortion component from the digital pilot signal, and based on the detected result, controls parameters of the digital predistorter.

Methods and systems for vector combining power amplification are disclosed herein. In one embodiment, a plurality of signals are individually amplified, then summed to form a desired time-varying complex envelope signal. Phase and/or frequency characteristics of one or more of the signals are controlled to provide the desired phase, frequency, and/or amplitude characteristics of the desired time-varying complex envelope signal. In another embodiment, a time-varying complex envelope signal is decomposed into a plurality of constant envelope constituent signals. The constituent signals are amplified equally or substantially equally, and then summed to construct an amplified version of the original time-varying envelope signal. Embodiments also perform frequency up-conversion.

A method and apparatus is disclosed for improving high frequency performance of an amplifier, such as for example, a current mirror. In one embodiment, a delay element is introduced in a current mirror signal path to account for signal propagation delay that may exist in one or more alternative signal paths. The delay element maintains desired phase alignment at a cascade node of the current mirror thereby establishing, in one embodiment, the cascode node (V_c) in an AC ground state. To extend current mirror high frequency capability an embodiment is disclosed having cross-coupled capacitors, active elements, or one or more other devices configured to provide positive feedback to one or more current mirror inputs. The positive feedback may be selectively configured to increase the operational bandwidth of the current mirror.

A method of generating values of a predistortion look up table for linearization of a transmitter. The method includes accumulating a plurality of pairs of values representing input and output values of samples entering one or more non-linear elements of the transmitter, fitting the pairs of values into a parameteric model of at least one of the one or more non-linear elements, so as to determine values for the parameters of the parameteric model, and generating values of the look up table responsive to the fitted parameteric model.

The invention provides a calibration device and a calibration method of a multi-input multi-output (MIMO) terminal. The calibration device comprises a second antenna port, a feedback module, a radio frequency receiving module, a comparison module, a distortion degree determination module and a predistortion treatment module, wherein the feedback module is used for feeding back an output signal of a radio frequency emission module to the second antenna port; the radio frequency receiving module is used for obtaining a digitized feedback signal; the comparison module is used for comparing the feedback signal with an input signal and determining whether a power amplifier works in a nonlinear area or not according to a comparison result; the distortion degree determination module is used for determining the distortion degree of the feedback signal when the power amplifier works in the nonlinear area; and the predistortion treatment module is used for adjusting a predistortion coefficient according to the distortion degree when the power amplifier works in the nonlinear area so as to obtain a calibrated predistortion coefficient. The calibration device can be utilized to calibrate a predistortion coefficient lookup table so as to ensure that the MIMO terminal can carry out predistortion treatment by utilizing the calibrated predistortion coefficient lookup table in a working process so as to improve the linear performance of the power amplifier.

An apparatus for monitoring a power amplifier coupled to a transmission medium includes a detector circuit, coupled to the transmission medium, that generates first and second detector signals corresponding to respective fundamental and harmonic components of a power amplifier output signal produced by the power amplifier. A comparing circuit is coupled to the detector circuit and compares the first and second detector signals. The comparing circuit, responsive to a comparison of the first and second detector signals, may generate a signal that indicates linearity of the power amplifier. In some embodiments, the detector circuit may generate the second detector signal without requiring phase information for the harmonic component. In other embodiments, a control circuit controls linearity of the power amplifier responsive to comparison of the first and second detector signals, for example, by controlling power amplifier bias and/or input signal level based on the comparison. Related methods are also discussed.