Digital Predistortion for RF Communications: From Equations to Implementation

DPD is an acronym that will be familiar to many RF (radio frequency) engineers, signal processing enthusiasts, and embedded software developers. DPD is ubiquitous in our cellular communications systems, enabling power amplifiers (PAs) to efficiently deliver maximum power to an antenna. As 5G drives up the antenna count in base stations and our spectrum becomes ever more congested, DPD has emerged as a key technology to allow for the development of efficient, cost-effective, and specification compliant cellular systems.Many of us have a unique understanding of DPD based on our own perspectives, be that from the purely mathematical viewpoint or the more constrained implementation on a microprocessor. Perhaps you’re an engineer evaluating the performance of DPD in your RF base station product or an algorithm developer who is curious as to how mathematical modeling techniques are implemented in real world-systems.
This article aims to broaden your knowledge and empower you to fully grasp the topic from all angles.