In this research, an innovative phased array antenna module is proposed to implement a high-power, high-efficient and compact C-band radio transmitter. The module configuration, which can be integrated into front-end circuits, was designed as planar layers stacked up together to form a metallic cube. The layers were fabricated by using a Computer Numerical Control (CNC) milling machine and screwed together. The antenna parts and the amplifier units were designed at two opposite sides of the cube to spread the dissipated heat produced by the amplifiers and act as a heat sink. Merging the antenna parts with the amplifier circuits offers additional advantages such as decreasing the total power loss, mass, and volume of the transmitter modules by removing the extra power divider and combiner networks and connectors between them as well as reducing the total signal path. To achieve both a maximum possible radiation efficiency and high directivity, the aperture waveguide antenna was selected as the array element. Four antenna elements have been located in a cavity to be excited equally and the cavity is excited through a slot on its underside so a compact subarray is formed. Antenna measurements demonstrated a 15.5 dBi gain and 20 dB return loss at 10 % fractional bandwidth centered around 5.8 GHz and with more than 98% radiation efficiency. The total dimensions of the subarray are approximately 8*12*4 cm3. The outcoming signal from the amplifiers is transferred into the slot exciting the subarray through a microstrip-to-waveguide transition (MWT). A novel and robust MWT structure was designed for the presented application. The MWT was also integrated with a microstrip coupler to monitor the power from the amplifier output. The measured insertion loss of the MWT along with the microstrip coupler was less than 0.25 dB along with more than 20 dB return loss within the same bandwidth of the subarray. The microstrip coupler shows 38 dB of coupling and more than 48 dB of isolation with negligible effects on the amplifier output signal and the insertion/return loss of the MWT. The amplifier subcomponents consist of power combiners/dividers (PCDs), high power amplifiers (HPAs) and bias circuitry. A Monolithic Microwave Integrated Circuit (MMIC) three-stage HPA was designed in a commercially available 0.15 um AlGaN/GaN HEMT technology provided by National Research Council Canada (NRC) and occupies an area of 4.7*3.7 mm2. To stabilize the HPA, a novel inductive degeneration technique was successfully used. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first time this technique has been used to stabilize HPAs. Careful considerations on input/output impedances of all HEMTs were taken into account to prevent parametric oscillations. Other instability sources, i.e. odd-mode, even-mode, and low frequency (bias circuit) oscillations were also prevented by designing the required stabilization circuits. The electromagnetic simulation of the HPA shows 35 W (45.5 dBm) of saturated output power, 26 dB large signal gain and 29% power added efficiency within the same operating bandwidth as the subarray. The output distortion is less than 27 dB, indicating that the HPA is highly linear. The PCD was designed by utilizing a novel, enhanced configuration of a Gysel structure implemented on Rogers RT-Duroid5880. The insertion loss of the Gysel is less than 0.2 dB while return loss and isolation are greater than 20 dB over the entire bandwidth. The same subarray area (8*12 cm2) has been used for the amplifier circuits and up to eight HPAs can be included in each module. All the above parts of the transmitter module were fabricated and measured, except the MMIC-HPA.

Comme toutes modulations multiporteuses, l'OFDM souffre d'une forte variation d'amplitudes qui se traduit par un PAPR élevé. Cette caractéristique de l'OFDM la rend très sensible aux non-linéarités de l'amplificateur de puissance. Pour faire face à cette problématique, on peut surdimensionner l'amplificateur de puissance (solution non efficace en terme de rendement énergétique), linéariser l'amplificateur via les techniques de pré-distorsions, ou réduire le PAPR du signal avant amplification. L'objectif de cette thèse s'inscrit dans cette dernière thématique et plus particulièrement sur les techniques dites d'ajout de signal.Dans cette thèse, après une étude sur l'état de l'art des techniques de réduction du PAPR et en particulier les techniques dites d'ajout de signal, nous avons développé et proposé de nouvelles techniques de réduction du PAPR. Ces contributions s'articulent principalement autour des techniques de Clipping et de la Tone Reservation. / One of the main drawbacks of the OFDM modulation scheme is its high Peak-To-Average Power variation (PAPR) which can induce poor power efficiency at the transmitter amplifier. The digital base band pre-distortion for linearisation of power amplifier and the PAPR mitigation are the most commonly used solution in order to deals with efficiency and linearisation at the high power amplifier. This thesis is focused on the PAPR mitigation solution, and particularly on the adding signal based techniques. The proposed solutions in this report are about improving the Tone Reservation method which is the most popular adding signal based technique for PAPR mitigation, and also the classical clipping method which is the most simple method (in terms of computational complexity) actually.

Comme toutes modulations multiporteuses, l'OFDM souffre d'une forte variation d'amplitudes qui se traduit par un PAPR élevé. Cette caractéristique de l'OFDM la rend très sensible aux non-linéarités de l'amplificateur de puissance. Pour faire face à cette problématique, on peut surdimensionner l'amplificateur de puissance (solution non efficace en terme de rendement énergétique), linéariser l'amplificateur via les techniques de pré-distorsions, ou réduire le PAPR du signal avant amplification. L'objectif de cette thèse s'inscrit dans cette dernière thématique et plus particulièrement sur les techniques dites d'ajout de signal.Dans cette thèse, après une étude sur l'état de l'art des techniques de réduction du PAPR et en particulier les techniques dites d'ajout de signal, nous avons développé et proposé de nouvelles techniques de réduction du PAPR. Ces contributions s'articulent principalement autour des techniques de Clipping et de la Tone Reservation. / One of the main drawbacks of the OFDM modulation scheme is its high Peak-To-Average Power variation (PAPR) which can induce poor power efficiency at the transmitter amplifier. The digital base band pre-distortion for linearisation of power amplifier and the PAPR mitigation are the most commonly used solution in order to deals with efficiency and linearisation at the high power amplifier. This thesis is focused on the PAPR mitigation solution, and particularly on the adding signal based techniques. The proposed solutions in this report are about improving the Tone Reservation method which is the most popular adding signal based technique for PAPR mitigation, and also the classical clipping method which is the most simple method (in terms of computational complexity) actually.

Ces travaux de thèse se concentrent sur la conception d'amplificateur de puissance MMIC large-bande haut rendement en technologie GaN pour des applications militaires de type radar et guerre électronique. Les objectifs principaux sont de proposer des structures innovantes de combinaison de puissance notamment pour réduire la taille des amplificateurs actuels tout en essayant d'améliorer leur rendement dans le même temps. Pour cela, une partie importante de ces travaux consiste au développement de combineurs de puissance ultra compactes et faibles pertes. Une fois ces combineurs réalisés et mesurés, ils sont intégrés dans des amplificateurs de puissance afin de prouver leur fonctionnalité et les avantages qu'ils apportent. Différents types d'amplificateur tant au niveau de l'architecture que desperformances sont réalisés au cours de ces travaux. / This work focus on the design of wideband and high efficiency GaN MMIC high power amplifiers for military applications such as radar and electronic warfare. The main objectives consist in finding innovative power combining structures in order to decrease the overall size of amplifiers and increasing their efficiency at the same time. For these matters, an important part of this work consisted in the design and realization of ultra compact and low loss power combiners. Once the combiners realized and measured, they are integrated into power amplifiers to prove their functionality and the advantages they bring. Several kind of amplifiers have been realized whether regrind their architecture or their performances.

El acelerado crecimiento de las comunicaciones a través de plataformas de transmisión en banda ancha por vía alámbrica e inalámbrica, sumado al uso cada vez más extenso de modulaciones de amplitud no constante que, debido a su alta eficiencia espectral y bajo coste de implementación, han sido adoptadas en el marco de desarrollo de diversos estándares de transmisión, son aspectos que han servido de soporte y motivación fundamental para el presente trabajo de investigación en el campo de la compensación de distorsiones no lineales en sistemas de comunicación. El estudio de los efectos de la distorsión no lineal y su compensación ha sido desde hace ya muchos años objeto de atención para investigadores de diversas áreas. Hoy, en particular, este estudio sigue siendo fundamental ya que se encuentra directamente implicado en el desarrollo de tecnologías de última generación en el área de las comunicaciones. Los nuevos sistemas de transmisión digital, en especial aquellos basados en OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing), son capaces de ofrecer altos niveles de eficiencia espectral utilizando modulaciones lineales multinivel sobre un numeroso conjunto de subportadoras que, al ser (idealmente) ortogonales en frecuencia, pueden ser ubicadas en un ancho de banda muy reducido permitiendo así transmitir elevadas tasas de información por segundo y por ancho de banda. Sin embargo, y a consecuencia de esto, problemas como las interferencias por canal adyacente o la presencia de una distorsión no lineal en la cadena de transmisión afectan de manera crítica las prestaciones de estos sistemas imponiendo severos límites a su viabilidad. De hecho, en el campo de las comunicaciones móviles y satelitales, existen actualmente diversas aplicaciones donde estos esquemas de modulación y multicanalización están ya operativos. En estos casos, la eficiencia de potencia en transmisión resulta primordial para, entre otras razones, lograr una máxima autonomía del equipamiento. En este contexto, el comportamiento no lineal de los amplificadores de alta potencia utilizados en transmisión de radiofrecuencia, constituye el principal obstáculo (desde el punto de vista de la distorsión no lineal) para el buen funcionamiento de los sistemas de comunicación digital basados en OFDM. Afortunadamente, este nocivo efecto puede ser compensado mediante diversas técnicas clásicas de linealización cuyas variantes -ad-hoc' han sido propuestas y ampliamente investigadas, existiendo al día de hoy una nutrida literatura parte de la cual referimos a lo largo de este trabajo. Entre dichas técnicas, la pre-distorsión digital ofrece óptimas condiciones para el diseño de linealizadores adaptativos ya que puede ser implementada a muy bajo coste sobre la información discreta de las señales de banda base. El objetivo que se persigue, en general, es el de proveer las condiciones de linealidad necesarias para explotar las capacidades propias de las modulaciones de alta eficiencia espectral, y al mismo tiempo alcanzar un máximo aprovechamiento de la potencia disponible. En este trabajo de investigación, efectuamos inicialmente una revisión sintetizada de algunas importantes técnicas de linealización para luego dar paso a una revisión más detallada de dos modelos relevantes utilizados para caracterizar el comportamiento no lineal de los amplificadores de alta potencia (modelo se Series de Volterra y modelo de Saleh para amplificadores nolineales sin memoria). Junto con ello se examinan algunas interesantes propiedades estadísticas asociadas al fenómeno de la distorsión no lineal que han dado pie a considerar durante la investigación posibles nuevas aplicaciones en estrategias de pre-distorsión. Se ha querido también incluir la descripción, a nivel de sistema y modelo de señal, de un esquema de transmisión OFDM genérico incluyendo caracterizaciones analíticas detalladas del efecto no lineal a objeto de formalizar en propiedad un modelo discreto exacto que otorgue una visión más profunda para la comprensión del fenómeno estudiado. Finalmente se presenta el diseño y evaluación de un esquema de pre-distorsión basado en un algoritmo iterativo que considera, como principal aporte, la optimización bidimensional de un reducido número de coeficientes de interpolación que identifican de manera adaptativa la característica inversa de ganancia compleja de un amplificador, tanto en función de la particular morfología no lineal de dicha curva, como también de la distribución de probabilidad de las señales de entrada en banda base. / The rapid growth of wired and wireless broad-band communications and the pervasive use of spectrally efficient non-constant amplitude modulations, adopted in the framework of several standardized transmission formats, motivates and supports the present research work in the field of non-linear distortion in communication systems. The compensation of nonlinearities has received a lot of attention in past and recent years, presenting direct implications on industrial development of last generation communication technologies. New digital transmission systems, particularly those based on Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM), feature high spectral efficiency as they exploit multilevel linear modulations to transmit at high information rates in combination with a dense allocation of a large number of (ideally) orthogonal sub-carriers in a relatively reduced bandwidth. As a result, problems such as adjacent channel interference and non-linear distortion become critical for system performance and, therefore, must be reduced to a minimum. Moreover, numerous applications of such transmission schemes are already operative in the field of satellite and mobile communications, where power efficiency is of primary concern due to, among other reasons, operation autonomy of the equipment and effective transmitted power. In this context, the non-linear behaviour of high power amplifiers (HPAs) constitutes a major impairment for OFDM-based digital communications systems. The compensation of these harmful effects can be achieved using a variety of techniques that have been proposed and widely dealt with in the literature. Among these techniques, digital pre-distortion, which can be carried out at a very low cost over the discrete base-band information, provides optimal features for the efficient implementation of adaptive linearization. Thence, in order to provide good conditions for the reliable use of high spectral efficiency modulations while taking the maximum advantage from the transmitting power budget, it is necessary to incorporate a suitable linearization technique.In the present work, we begin by reviewing some background on linearization techniques. This leads us to continue analyzing two relevant theoretical models typically used in characterizing memory and memoryless nonlinear HPAs (Volterra Series model and Saleh model for memoryless nonlinear HPAs). In addition to this a generic OFDM system and signal structure is described in detail by including the non-linear effect in the analytical model of the transmission chain. This is done in order to formalize an exact discrete OFDM model that help us in achieving a deeper understanding of the phenomenon under consideration. Then, some useful statistical properties and parameters associated to the nonlinear distortion are examined as well as the application of a CDF-based estimation of nonlinearities which is proposed as a new pre-distortion strategy. Finally, a new discrete adaptive pre-distortion scheme is formulated and then tested via simulation. The analysis and design of the main algorithm proposed considers the adaptive identification of the inverse complex gain characteristic of a nonlinear HPA. For this purpose, an iterative 2-D optimization of a reduced number of interpolation functions is formulated under a special two-fold criterion which accounts for the particular morphology of the HPA's nonlinear gain characteristic, as well as the probability distribution of the input base-band information.

This thesis considers the use of the tone reservation (TR) technique in orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) systems. The nonlinear distortion is usually introduces by the high power amplifiers (HPA) used in wireless communications systems. It orders to reduce the inter-modulation distortion (IMD) in OFDM systems. In addition to the original peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR)-reduction criterion, we propose signal-to-distortion plus noise power ratio (SDNR) criterion and distortion power plus inverse of signal power (DIS) criterion. Based on these criteria, the cross-entropy (CE) algorithm is introduced to determine desired values of the peak reduction carriers (PRCs) to improve the bit error rate (BER) of nonlinearly distorted. Computational complexity is always the major concern of PAPR technique. Therefore, the real-valued PRCs and the modified transform decomposition (MTD) method are introduced here to dramatically decrease complexity of inverse fast Fourier transform (IFFT) operation with slightly performance loss. The simulation results show that the proposed criteria provide a better BER performance and a lower computational complexity.

The objective of this research work is to investigate, design and measurement of a digital predistortion linearizer that is able to compensate the dynamic nonlinear distortion of a High Power Amplifier (PA). The effectiveness of the proposed baseband predistorter (PD) on the performance of a WLAN OFDM transmitter utilizing a nonlinear PA with memory effect is observed and discussed. For this purpose, a 10W Class-A/B power amplifier with a gain of 22 dB, operated over the 3.5 GHz frequency band was designed and implemented. The proposed baseband PD is independent of the operating RF frequency and can be used in multiband applications. Its operation is based on the Hammerstein system, taking into account PA memory effect compensation, and demonstrates a noticeable improvement compared to memoryless predistorters. Different types of modelling procedures and linearizers were introduced and investigated, in which accurate behavioural models of Radio Frequency (RF) PAs exhibiting linear and nonlinear memory effects were presented and considered, based on the Wiener approach employing a linear parametric estimation technique. Three new linear methods of parameter estimation were investigated, with the aim of reducing the complexity of the required filtering process in linear memory compensation. Moreover, an improved wiener model is represented to include the nonlinear memory effect in the system. The validity of the PA modelling approaches and predistortion techniques for compensation of nonlinearities of a PA were verified by several tests and measurements. The approaches presented, based on the Wiener system, have the capacity to deal with the existing trade-off between accuracy and convergence speed compared to more computationally complex behavioural modelling algorithms considering memory effects, such as those based on Volterra series and Neural Networks. In addition, nonlinear and linear crosstalks introduced by the power amplifier nonlinear behaviour and antennas mutual coupling due to the compact size of a MIMO OFDM transmitter have been investigated.

The objective of this research work is to investigate, design and measurement of a digital predistortion linearizer that is able to compensate the dynamic nonlinear distortion of a High Power Amplifier (PA). The effectiveness of the proposed baseband predistorter (PD) on the performance of a WLAN OFDM transmitter utilizing a nonlinear PA with memory effect is observed and discussed. For this purpose, a 10W Class-A/B power amplifier with a gain of 22 dB, operated over the 3.5 GHz frequency band was designed and implemented. The proposed baseband PD is independent of the operating RF frequency and can be used in multiband applications. Its operation is based on the Hammerstein system, taking into account PA memory effect compensation, and demonstrates a noticeable improvement compared to memoryless predistorters. Different types of modelling procedures and linearizers were introduced and investigated, in which accurate behavioural models of Radio Frequency (RF) PAs exhibiting linear and nonlinear memory effects were presented and considered, based on the Wiener approach employing a linear parametric estimation technique. Three new linear methods of parameter estimation were investigated, with the aim of reducing the complexity of the required filtering process in linear memory compensation. Moreover, an improved wiener model is represented to include the nonlinear memory effect in the system. The validity of the PA modelling approaches and predistortion techniques for compensation of nonlinearities of a PA were verified by several tests and measurements. The approaches presented, based on the Wiener system, have the capacity to deal with the existing trade-off between accuracy and convergence speed compared to more computationally complex behavioural modelling algorithms considering memory effects, such as those based on Volterra series and Neural Networks. In addition, nonlinear and linear crosstalks introduced by the power amplifier nonlinear behaviour and antennas mutual coupling due to the compact size of a MIMO OFDM transmitter have been investigated.

Digital communication systems which use Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) are now widely used and have many advantages. The main disadvantage is the requirement for highly linear analogue electronics including the high power amplifier (HPA). This requirement cannot be met in all circumstances because of the occurrence of symbols with high peak to average power ratio (PAPR). Such symbols may be non-linearly distorted by limiting. Approaches to solve this problem have been either to reduce the PAPR at the transmitter or to try to mitigate the effect of the non-linearity at the receiver. Soft-limiting, i.e. applying limiting in software prior to the HPA is a simple way to reduce the PAPR. It produces non-linear distortion which will cause an increase in the bit-error-rate (BER) at the receiver. This thesis surveys existing alternatives ways of reducing the effect of non-linearity and proposes some new ones. Two iterative receiver techniques, based on statistical analysis of the nature of the non-linearity, have been implemented and investigated. These are the ‘Bussgang Noise Cancellation’ (BNC) technique and the ‘Decision Aided Reconstruction’ (DAR) techniques. As these techniques are valid for any memory-less nonlinearity, an alternative form of limiting, named as Inverted-Wraparound (IWRAP) has been included in the BNC investigation. A new method is proposed which is capable of correcting the received time-domain samples that are clipped, once they have been identified. This is named the ‘Equation-Method’ and it works by identifying constellation symbols that are likely to be correct at the receiver. If there are a sufficient number of these and they are correctly identified, the FFT may be partitioned to produce a set of equations that may be solved for the clipped time-domain samples. The thesis proposes four enhancements to this new method which improve its effectiveness. It is shown that the best form of this method outperforms conventional techniques especially for severe clipping levels. The performance of these four enhancements is evaluated over channels with additive white Gaussian noise (AWGN) in addition to clipping distortion. A technique based on a ‘margin factor’ is designed to make these methods work more effectively in the presence of AWGN noise. A new combining algorithm referred as ‘HARQ for Clipping’ is presented where soft bit decisions are combined from multiple transmissions. ‘HARQ for Clipping’ has been combined with the best version of the Equation-Method, and the performance of this approach is evaluated in terms of the BER with different levels of AWGN. It has been compared to other approaches from the literature and was found to out-perform the BNC iterative receiver by 3dB at signal to noise ratios around 10dB. Without HARQ, the best version of the Equation-Method performs better than the BNC receiver, at signal-to-nose ratios above about 17dB.

Les communications futures pour les applications civiles et militaires utilisent des signaux modulés complexes large bande qui seront émis à travers des amplificateurs de puissance multivoie de type DOHERTY qui devront avoir des performances en puissance, rendement, OBO et largeur de bande qui constituent aujourd’hui un véritable défi à relever. Pour ce faire les concepteurs ont besoin d’outils de caractérisation temporelle permettant la mesure normalisées et l’optimisation des tensions et courants aux accès des dispositifs non linéaires sous pointes ou connectorisés. Ce travail de thèse a permis de mettre en œuvre cet outil de caractérisation temporelle qui a été utilisé pour répondre à des besoins spécifiques pour la modélisation de transistor, pour l’optimisation de leur fonctionnement en termes de stabilité impulsion à impulsion, pour la recherche des conditions optimales de leur fonctionnement dans un amplificateur de type Doherty. Pour cette mise en œuvre une modélisation mathématique des échantillonneurs a été réalisée pour évaluer leurs performances et choisir le mieux adapté à la mesure temporelle RF. Des procédures d’étalonnages rigoureuses ont été développées pour obtenir simultanément des formes d’ondes temporelles calibrées à spectre très large (Basse fréquences jusqu’aux Hyperfréquences). / The future communications for civil and military applications will use complex wideband modulated signals to be transmitted through multi-channel DOHERTY power amplifiers which should have high performance in terms of power, efficiency, OBO, and bandwidth. In order to meet these stringent requirements, designers need time-domain characterization tools for calibrated measurements and for optimizing voltages and currents at both ports of non-linear connectorized or on-wafer devices. This work successfully implements time-domain characterization tools used to meet specific needs for transistor modeling, to optimize their operation in terms of pulse to pulse stability, and to search optimal conditions of their operation modes in a Doherty power amplifier. For this implementation, mathematical modeling is performed to evaluate sampler’s performances in terms of time-domain sampling efficiency in order to choose the best suited sampling architecture for RF time-domain measurements. Rigorous calibration procedures have been developed to obtain simultaneously full time-domain calibrated waveforms (from low Frequencies to Microwave frequencies).