Spectral analysis of polynomial nonlinearity with applications to RF power amplifiers

Abstract

The majority of the nonlinearity in a communication system is attributed to the power amplifier (PA) present at the final stage of the transmitter chain. In this paper, we consider Gaussian distributed input signals (such as OFDM), and PAs that can be modeled by memoryless or memory polynomials. We derive closed-form expressions of the PA output power spectral density, for an arbitrary nonlinear order, based on the so-called Leonov-Shiryaev formula. We then apply these results to answer practical questions such as the contribution of AM/PM conversion to spectral regrowth and the relationship between memory effects and spectral asymmetry.