Pruning the Volterra Series for Behavioral Modeling of Power Amplifiers Using Physical Knowledge

• Published in: IEEE transactions on microwave theory and techniques Vol. 55; no. 5; pp. 813 - 821
• Main Authors: Zhu, A., Pedro, J.C., Cunha, T.R.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York, NY IEEE 01-05-2007; Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers; The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. (IEEE)
• Subjects: Amplifiers; Applied sciences; Behavioral model; Blocking; Circuit properties; Computational modeling; Computer simulation; Couplings; Derivation; Electric, optical and optoelectronic circuits; Electronic circuits; Electronics; Exact sciences and technology; Measurement standards; Microwave amplifiers; Microwave circuits, microwave integrated circuits, microwave transmission lines, submillimeter wave circuits; Microwave devices; Microwaves; Physical properties; Power amplifiers; power amplifiers (PAs); Power system modeling; Pruning; Radio frequency; Radiofrequency amplifiers; Reduced order systems; Simulators; Volterra series; Microwave power amplifiers; Time frequency domain method; Computer simulation; Behavioral model; Behavior model; Modeling; Physical properties; Implementation; Time domain method; Volterra series; Behavioral analysis; power amplifiers (PAs); Power amplifier; Reduced order model; Simulator
• ISSN: 0018-9480; 1557-9670
• DOI: 10.1109/TMTT.2007.895155

This paper presents an efficient and effective approach to pruning the Volterra series for behavioral modeling of RF and microwave power amplifiers. Rather than adopting a pure "black-box" approach, this model pruning technique is derived from a physically meaningful block model, which has a clear linkage to the underlying physical behavior of the device. This allows all essential physical properties of the PA to be retained, but significantly reduces model complexity by removing unnecessary coefficients from the general Volterra series. A reduced-order model of this kind can be easily extracted from standard time/frequency-domain measurements or simulations, and may be simply implemented in system-level simulators. A complete physical analysis and a systematic derivation are presented, together with both computer simulations and experimental validations