Performance trade-offs with quasi-linearly amplified OFDM through a two-branch combining technique

Abstract

It is reasonable to expect that the emerging integrated broadband communication technologies, initially intended for optical fibre or cable transmission, will also be available for wireless transmission, within high bit rate radio local area networks. It is currently recognized that multicarrier modulation schemes, also known as OFDM schemes (orthogonal frequency division multiplexing), offer many advantages for signalling at high data rates over time dispersive channels. However, they exhibit strong envelope fluctuations, which implies power amplification difficulties. We evaluate performance trade-offs with a two-branch combining technique for "quasi-linear" power amplification of OFDM signals.