Orthogonal Polynomials for Power Amplifier Modeling and Predistorter Design

Abstract

The polynomial model is commonly used in power amplifier (PA) modeling and predistorter design. However, the conventional polynomial model exhibits numerical instabilities when higher order terms are included. In this paper, we introduce a novel set of orthogonal polynomials, which can be used for PA as well as predistorter modeling. Theoretically, the conventional and orthogonal polynomial models are "equivalent" and, thus, should behave similarly. In practice, however, the two approaches can perform quite differently in the presence of finite precision processing. Simulation results show that the orthogonal polynomials can alleviate the numerical instability problem associated with the conventional polynomials and generally yield better PA modeling accuracy as well as predistortion linearization performance.