Semianalytical Estimation of Nonlinear Distortion in Active Antennas

Abstract

Active antennas are key enablers of new generation satellite applications, from Earth observation to telecommunications. In particular, high throughput satellite systems of next generation require the intrinsic flexibility of active antennas, making them one of the most relevant research topics of the recent years. At the best of the authors' knowledge, there is no literature investigating the signal-to-nonlinear-distortion ratio (SNDR) in active antennas. Hence, in this paper we propose a semianalytical model to evaluate the impact of the nonlinear distortion generated by solid-state power amplifiers (SSPAs) in direct radiating arrays (DRAs) for two very relevant waveforms: the DVB-S2X waveform, that is one of the most successful standards for satellite communications, and the New Radio waveform, that is going to integrate non-terrestrial networks in the 5G framework.