MAXENTRIC TECHNOLOGIES LLC — Department of Defense SBIR Phase II: A12-041

Description

The Ka-/Q-band satellite systems offer potential for transportable and mobile communications through the effective use of the wide bandwidths available while requiring that adequate linearity performance be maintained. In environments where size and power conservation is of high importance, power consumption and heat dissipation in the power amplifier (PA) must be minimized. However, it is widely accepted that linearity and efficiency are competing constraints. To address these challenges, MaXentric Technologies proposes a cost-effective linearizer, ALASTx (Adaptive LineArizer for Satellite Transmitters), for high efficiency satellite transmitters, capable of better than -50 dBc ACPR and <2.5?/dB AM-PM using multi-tone signals with modulation bandwidths up to 52 MHz while operating the PA at peak efficiency (0dB backoff) to achieve high linearity while simultaneously maintaining high efficiency on Ka-/Q-band PAs (30-31 GHz and 43.5-45.5 GHz). ALASTx offers exceptional linearization capabilities for wide-band systems and, as compared to other schemes, has become very cost-efficient by utilizing a small set of additional resources in an already-existing signal processing unit used for signal generation. One of the major advantages of using ALASTx is that this solution is independent of technology, power amplifier classes, power levels, and environment.