Modeling and compensation of antenna RF switching non-idealities in OFDM receivers

Abstract

Antenna RF switches are radio frequency components used in spatial diversity systems in wireless communi-cations. In this paper, we investigate the transient effects of the antenna RF switching on the receiver front-end. We show experimentally that the duration of this effect can be significant compared to an OFDM (Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing) guard period used in wireless systems. A simple memoryless time-varying model of the antenna is then developed. After quantifying the performance degradation in an OFDM system caused by the RF switching, a digital compensator to minimize this performance degradation is presented.