Phase-error compensation of a pulsed power amplifier with a vector modulator in radar applications

Abstract

This paper describes a phase-error compensation method employing the digital predistortion for pulsed power amplifiers in radar applications. The predistortion method was evaluated for the power amplifier based on the commercially available Avago ATF52189 HEMT at frequency 1.3 GHz. The measurement setup and the extraction procedure of the inverse model of the power-amplifier phase distortion is presented. Using proposed method the maximum phase-error was reduced from 5° to 0.8°, while the gain changes only within 0.1 dB.