Transient response study of 16-QAM with nonlinear amplifier arrays

Nonlinear power amplifiers are used extensively in wireless telecommunication devices. They provide much higher power efficiency than linear power amplifiers. This translates to smaller batteries, longer battery life, and smaller wireless devices in general. This paper studies a novel technique to generate a quadrature amplitude modulated signal using nonlinear power amplifier arrays. This type of system effectively eliminates the traditional nonlinear effects of the power amplifiers. This paper analyzes and models for the first time the distortion introduced by the amplifier arrays as a transient response. Several techniques are introduced to mitigate the array distortion at the receiver.