Improved Coding-Efficiency Two-Level Source Encoder for RF Switch-Mode Power Amplifiers

A ΣΔ-driven RF switch-mode power amplifier is inherently linear only when it has a two-level output. At the same time, a two-level output generates the largest amount of quantization noise. This brief analyzes the effect of nonequal level spacing in a three-level ΣΔ output and provides a method for shaping the corresponding error noise to regions outside the band of interest. Subsequently, the nonlinearity-shaping property is utilized to obtain an improved two-level drive signal based on three-levelΣΔmodulation. The new binary drive signal is proven to have better adjacent channel leakage ratio and higher coding efficiency than a conventional two-level ΣΔ modulator. In the investigated case, measured coding efficiency improves from 8.9% of the conventional two-level modulator to 21% of the modified two-level modulator

Digital Radio Encoding and Power Amplifier Design for Multimode and Multiband Wireless Communications

The evolution of wireless technology has necessitated the support of multiple communication standards by mobile devices. At present, multiple chipsets/radios operating at predefined sets of modulation schemes, frequency bands, bandwidths and output power levels are used to achieve this objective. This leads to higher component counts, increased cost and limits the capacity to cope with future communication standards. In order to tackle different wireless standards using a single chipset, digital circuits have been increasingly deployed in radios and demonstrated re-configurability in different modulation schemes (multimode) and frequency bands (multiband). Despite efforts and progress made in digitizing the entire radio, the power amplifier (PA) is still designed using an conventional approach and has become the bottleneck in digital transmitters, in terms of low average power efficiency, poor compatibility with modern CMOS technology and limited re-configurability. This research addresses these issues from two aspects. The first half of the thesis investigates signal encoding issues between the modulator and PA. We propose, analyze and evaluate a new hybrid amplitude/time signal encoding scheme that significantly improves the coding efficiency and dynamic range of a digitally modulated power amplifier (DMPA) without significantly increasing design complexity. The proposed hybrid amplitude/time encoding scheme combines both the amplitude domain and the time domain to optimally encode information. Experimental results show that hybrid amplitude/time encoding results in a 35% increase in the average coding efficiency with respect to conventional time encoding, and is only 6.7% lower than peak efficiency when applied to a Wireless Local Area Network (WLAN) signal with a peak to average power ratio equal to 9.9 dB. A new DMPA architecture, based on the proposed hybrid encoding, is also proposed. The second half of this thesis presents the design, analysis and implementation of a CMOS PA that is amenable to the proposed hybrid encoding scheme. A multi-way current mode class-D PA architecture has been proposed and realized in 130 nm CMOS technology. The designed PA has satisfied the objectives of wide bandwidth (1.5 GHz - 2.7 GHz at 1 dB output power), and high efficiency (PAE 63%) in addition to demonstrating linear responses using the proposed digital encoding. A complete digital transmitter combining the encoder and the multi-way PA was also investigated. The overall efficiency is 27% modulating 7.3 dB peak to average power ratio QAM signals

Power Control In Optical CDMA

Optical CDMA (OCDMA) is the multiplexing technique over the fiber optics medium to increase the number of users and this is a step towards all optical Passive Optical Networks (PON). Optical OFDM, WDM and Optical TDM have also been studied in this thesis which are also candidates to all optical passive optical networks. One of the main features of Optical CDMA over other multiplexing techniques is that it has smooth capacity. The capacity of OCDMA is constrained by the interference level. Hence, when some users are offline or requesting less data rates, then the capacity will be increased in the network. Same feature could be obtained in other multiplexing techniques, but they will need much more complicated online organizers. However, in OCDMA it is critical to adjust the transmission power to the right value; otherwise, near-far problem may greatly reduce the network capacity and performance. In this thesis Power control concepts are analyzed in optical CDMA star networks. It is applied so that the QoS of the network get enhanced and all users after the power control have their desired signal to interference (SIR) value. Moreover, larger number of users can be accommodated in the network. Centralized power control algorithm is considered for this thesis. In centralized algorithm noiseless case and noisy case have been studied. In this thesis several simulations have been performed which shows the QoS difference before and after power control. The simulation results are validated also by the theoretical computation.fi=Opinnäytetyö kokotekstinä PDF-muodossa.|en=Thesis fulltext in PDF format.|sv=Lärdomsprov tillgängligt som fulltext i PDF-format

LBR-2 Earth stations for the ACTS program

The Low Burst Rate-2 (LBR-2) earth station being developed for NASA's Advanced Communications Technology Satellite (ACTS) is described. The LBR-2 is one of two earth station types that operate through the satellite's baseband processor. The LBR-2 is a small earth terminal (VSAT)-like earth station that is easily sited on a user's premises, and provides up to 1.792 megabits per second (MBPS) of voice, video, and data communications. Addressed here is the design of the antenna, the rf subsystems, the digital processing equipment, and the user interface equipment