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A New Bessel-Fourier Memoryless Nonlinear Power Amplifier Behavioral

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Article in IEEE Microwave and Wireless Components Letters · January 2013

DOI: 10.1109/LMWC.2012.2236082

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IEEE MICROWAVE AND WIRELESS COMPONENTS LETTERS, VOL. 23, NO. 1, JANUARY 2013 25

A New Bessel-Fourier Memoryless Nonlinear

Power Amplifier Behavioral Model
Mairtin O’Droma, Senior Member, IEEE, and Lei Yiming, Member, IEEE

Abstract—A new modified Bessel-Fourier (MBF) nonlinear RF

power amplifier (PA) memoryless behavioral model is proposed.
The accuracy and behavioral prediction performance especially of
its low third order model is better than the best published low order
models in use today. Besides inheriting all the key properties of the
BF model, surpassing its low-order and matching its high-order ac-
curacy and performance, the new model comes with two additional
attributes of ‘margin of reliability’ beyond the dynamic range set
by the extraction measurements and model order ‘monotonic ex-
tensibility.’
Index Terms—Bessel–Fourier model, Modified Bessel–Fourier
model, nonlinear RF power amplifier (PA) behavioral model.

I. INTRODUCTION Fig. 1. Accuracy of 3, 5, 7 and 10 coefficients BF and MBF envelope models

of the LDMOS PA EM envelope characteristics as a function of . The ‘Zero

A NEW Modified Bessel–Fourier (MBF) nonlinear RF Model’ reference is one where all coefficients are zero.
PA memoryless behavioral model is proposed. Like
the BF envelope model, [1]–[6], from which it emanates, it II. MBF MODEL DERIVATION
is directly extracted in the envelope domain but, unlike it, it Let an RF input-output relationship be expressed as a FS ex-
exploits a previously unobserved potential for finding better pansion of the IVTC, [4], [5], with the odd-order constraint ap-
models than are possible with the BF model. This potential is plied
present in the inseparable underlying extraction of Fourier se-
ries (FS) approximations of hypothetical memoryless complex
instantaneous voltage transfer characteristics (IVTCs) of the
PA. In particular, it consists in an inherent matching potential
of the FS approximation’s low odd order terms, especially (1)
the fundamental term, to one of these hypothetical PA RF
IVTCs, the amplitude component of which—not untypical of Here, is incorporated into the period of the FS periodic
the measured IVTC of a saturating PA—has some likeness to extension, which replaces parameter previously used; viz.,
a to half-wave sinusoid over its 2-D dynamic . The more physical meaning of both and
range. D here is defined as the dynamic range of the extraction also helps clarify, as done implicitly in Section I and in Fig. 1
measurements of the PA’s envelope characteristics. Exploiting below, remaining ambiguities surrounding the role of , e.g., it
this property is achieved, cf. (1) below, by constraining the being treated as an arbitrary scaling parameter, [3], [4].
underlying FS approximation to odd order terms only, and by Consider the generalised multicarrier input, , expressed
explicitly incorporating and directly controlling the ratio of as , where the and/or
the period of the periodic extension of this FS to the PA’s would contain modulation information signals, or unintelligible
IVTC dynamic range, . Choosing to make this period signals such as narrowband noise, or such like signals. The
around twice the width of this dynamic range enhances strongly are real or arbitrarily defined carrier angular frequencies; e.g.,
the realisation of this good matching potential. “real” for OFDM subcarriers; “arbitrary” for narrowband noise
In the following two sections a derivation of the MBF model or multipath. Substituting this for in (1), and employing
and a brief comparative analysis of its superior modelling accu- the series expansion, , where
racy and behavioral performance prediction are presented. are Bessel functions of the first kind, [7], the PA output
may be found to be
Manuscript received October 05, 2012; accepted December 10, 2012. Date
of current version January 16, 2013
M. O’Droma is with the Telecommunications Research Centre, University of
Limerick, Limerick, Ireland (e-mail: Mairtin.ODroma@ul.ie).
Y. Lei is with the State Key Laboratory of Advanced Optical Communica-
tion Systems and Networks, School of EECS, Peking University, Beijing, China
(e-mail leiym@pku.edu.cn).
Color versions of one or more of the figures in this paper are available online
at http://ieeexplore.ieee.org.
(2)
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/LMWC.2012.2236082

1531-1309/$31.00 © 2012 IEEE

26 IEEE MICROWAVE AND WIRELESS COMPONENTS LETTERS, VOL. 23, NO. 1, JANUARY 2013

where . This, (2), is the multicarrier MBF

decomposition model, employed, for example, in multicarrier
multiband behavioral analysis, e.g., [1], [2], [5], [6]. For in-
stance, setting the condition

(3)

yields the -order IMPs in the -harmonic band. Normally in-

terest is focused on , where yields the amplified
input and , etc., the third, fifth, etc. IMPs.
The extraction of an th order MBF model having ratio ,
denoted , is achieved by a Least Squares (or other)
Fig. 2. Model AM-AM gain characteristics (top) and absolute model errors
minimisation of the difference over between the measure- (bottom) with respect to LDMOS PA’s EM ‘measured’ gain.
ments of the PA’s memoryless, or equivalent memoryless (EM),
complex envelope characteristics and the model’s estimate of TABLE I
these, i.e., the envelope term, in (4), of the output, , when PERFORMANCE COMPARISON: MBF VERSUS CLASSICAL MODELS
the input is a single unmodulated carrier, i.e., when
, and in (2)

(4)

Clearly, for a given set extracted here, an unlimited number of

sets of coefficients and hence of hypothetical IVTCs yielding
the same PA envelope characteristics may be found; cf. also [8].
Taking yields the IVTC referred to in Section I
where amplitude and phase characteristics will have odd and
even symmetry about zero resp.; cf. also [9].
The envelope term in (4) is the new MBF envelope behav-
ioral model.

III. ACCURACY, PERFORMANCE AND COMPARISONS

The MBF models are compared to BF models and to other
classical low order models in use today. The models were ex- gion, may be seen. Also it does best for various performance
tracted from the EM complex envelope characteristics of an prediction FOMs—using a model validation WCDMA signal-,
L-band LDMOS PA; the EM gain may be seen in Fig. 2, marked such as the ‘normalised mean square error’ (NMSE) and “adja-
‘measured’. These in turn are extracted from the complex en- cent channel error power ratio” (ACEPR), Table I; these follow
velope measurements of the PA driven at 5 dB input backoff definitions in [2] or [12]. While results from just one PA ex-
(IBO, relative to the 1 dB compression point, ) by a standard ample are presented here, the case is the same for other PAs;
WCDMA signal having a bandwidth of 3.84 MHz and channel this is as might be expected given the generic shape of the PAs’
spacing of 5 MHz ( samples at 32 MSamples/sec, corre- AM-AM characteristics.
sponding to a 3.125 msec signal duration). Similar to those pub- Among higher order models, MBF matches the BF model.
lished elsewhere, these manifest some memory effects (e.g., [2], In fact, when , both MBF and BF yield good models
Fig. 3.4). The peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) of the extrac- over for values beyond the transition to good models,
tion and validation signals at the PA’s input & output under the i.e., for MBF and for BF, cf. Fig. 1, and be-
above operating conditions were found to be 10.36 & 6.6 dB and havior prediction performances for 10th order models in Table I.
10 & 6.57 dB respectively. Hence the dynamic range of the PA However, MBF has two additional attributes over BF: (a) large
operation stretches deep into its large signal nonlinear region. signal “margin of reliability” beyond the dynamic range set by
Fig. 1 presents graphs of MBF and BF model average error the extraction measurements and (b) model order “monotonic
(AE) as a function of and . AE here is defined as the mean extensibility.”
absolute error between the model’s envelope characteristics and The former, (a), arises because of the smoothness and shape
the EM envelope characteristics taken over . Of special in- of the long free-form transitions which the under-
terest is the clear good optimum AE for the low order MBF(3; lying FS approximation creates between the fixed IVTC sec-
) model, at . The AE results in Table I confirm the su- tions—hypothetical IVTC sections, for envelope domain model
periority of the MBF(3; 3.8) over the best BF(3; ), Modified extraction—and which complete each period of the periodic ex-
Saleh (MS) [10], Saleh [11] and a 3rd order power series PS(3) tension. In [9], an algorithm for generating this free-form tran-
models; bettering its nearest rival, MS, by more than 200%. In sition curve from a mirror-image is given; this is the equivalent
Fig. 2, the superior accuracy of MBF over the whole input dy- of that arising from (4) when and . Here, for
namic range, and especially so in the non-linear saturation re- values around 4, these transitions created by the FS may be
O’DROMA AND YIMING: NEW BESSEL–FOURIER MEMORYLESS NONLINEAR PAR BEHAVIORAL MODEL 27

The 3rd order MBF PA model accuracy and behavioral

performance prediction is shown to be superior to existing
established low order models; e.g., its accuracy being of the
order of twice as good as the next best. Such good low order
models are desirable for certain applications, e.g., for narrow
band solid state PA behavioral analysis, or their incorporation,
as the memoryless component, into high speed linearisation
systems for PAs manifesting combinations of memoryless and
with-memory nonlinear distortion, [13]–[15].
Finally, as MBF has the attributes of a large signal “margin
of reliability” and a “monotonic extensibility,” not present in BF
models, it may reasonably claim not just the low order but also
the high order ‘model-of-choice’ status.
Fig. 3. Comparison of model AE deterioration as a function of an orderly drop-
ping of coefficients terms, starting with the 10th coefficient, for directly ex-
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