Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Flexible Powers Spa
Flexible Powers Spa
net/publication/283106938
CITATIONS READS
4 722
4 authors, including:
D.K. Ghodgaonkar
Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology
74 PUBLICATIONS 1,562 CITATIONS
SEE PROFILE
Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:
All content following this page was uploaded by D.K. Ghodgaonkar on 20 March 2017.
dynamically vary the bias point in a class-A satellite transponder design. A common practice
amplifier, according to the varying envelope of is to design a payload with state-of-the-art sub-
the incoming RF input signal power to improve systems available in the market. For example,
the efficiency. All of these works are excellent 100 watt SSPAs for UHF-band, 40 watt SSPAs
achievements and most of them are for ground for L-band and 15 watt SSPAs for C-band are
applications hence the aspects regarding space available off-the-shelf with space heritage design.
applications are not presented. They are commonly selected for satellite
transponder design. Anything different from the
For space applications, very limited work has off-the-shelf space heritage product needs new
been proposed [13-14]. Moreover they are based design and new qualification leads to impact on
on only theoretical concept which may be cost and schedule. The following examples show
difficult to implement practically for space the applications where flexible output power
application. A scenario for space hardware is SSPAs are needed.
quite different then ground hardware. Some of
the critical challenges are DC power generation (i) The Direct-To-Home (DTH) Television
on-board, thermal management, multipaction and reception is highly distorted and sometimes the
corona due to vacuum operation, ionizing Television reception is fully lost due to rain
radiations, availability of space qualified fading of the signal (especially when the
component, reliability guidelines, non-repairable communication is at Ku-Band). The uplink rain
hardware etc. For ground applications, fading losses can be met by using Automatic
availability of DC power and removal of heat is Level Control (ALC) circuit at the input of the
not of major concern, but for satellite application amplifier which compensates the uplink path loss
where Sun is the only source of energy and by increasing the small signal gain of the
conduction is the only medium to dissipate heat, amplifier. But, in order to meet the downlink rain
DC power generation and thermal management fading losses, the satellite transmit power has to
are very critical. As compared to the ground be increased. This can be achieved by increasing
hardware, there are more restrictions on the input power to the final power devices but
component selection for space hardware because this drives the device into hard saturation which
of different reliability guidelines. For example, affects reliability of the device. Another approach
the availability of the active device (BJT, can be use of higher power amplifier than
MESFET, MOSFET, etc.) which is the heart of normally required. This higher power amplifier
the active sub-systems with higher efficiency is will consume more power even when there is no
limited for space applications. It is also rain. So it is advantageous to keep higher power
mandatory to use devices with specified derating SSPA in the chain, operate at the required power
guidelines to meet the reliability criteria of the level and increase the output power automatically
device. Higher the device efficiency lower is the as and when required while keeping the
power dissipation and better the thermal efficiency maximum at back-off. This is a
performance which leads to maintain specified different application proposed than most of the
channel temperature of the device and hence the published work.
reliability is good.
(ii) The growing development of
So, it is very useful to improve efficiency of any telecommunications results in the crucial need for
active device in all applications. In this paper, we spectrally efficient modulation techniques.
present a simplified technique using which the M-QAM modulations appear then useful for
space hardware can be easily realized. satellite communication systems. But the main
critical point lies in that the non constant
II. NEED FOR FLEXIBLE OUTPUT SSPA envelope characteristic of M-QAM signals
classically requires an output power back-off of
Depending upon coverage area and user the SSPAs which is prejudicial to the Power
requirement, the power amplifier is selected for Added Efficiency (PAE) performances. As a
consequence, these types of modulation require reason is that for the devices like Metal to
an elaborate management of the RF power Semiconductor FETs (MESFET), changing the
resources to meet the linearity specification while gate voltage affects reliability as well as gain of
saving DC consumption. the device because gate voltage is also related to
mutual trans-conductance.
Most of the satellites launched so far are with
fixed output whose output can be varied using If gain of the amplifier is changed an additional
tele-commandable attenuator but has very low gain compensation circuit has to be incorporated
efficiency at back-off. The Flexible output power in the amplifier. So it is advisable to reduce the
SSPA allows changing the output power while drain voltage rather than drain current. The non-
maintaining a good efficiency at back off. linearity of the device is dependent on the drain
voltage so reducing the drain voltage may affect
Table 1: Efficiency of 20 watt SSPA under back-off the linearity of the SSPA so it is necessary to
ensure that the inter-modulation product remains
RF Input level Pout
(dBm)
Dc power
consumption add within permissible limits. Moreover for space
(watt) (%) applications another important aspect is to design
Nominal 20 54 37
Pin-4 10 42 23
the line up such that the final power devices are
Pin-7 5 37 13 not driven into hard compression affecting the
reliability under the unwanted overdrives up to
Table 1 shows the relationship between the input 20 dB from the ground. For SSPAs using wide
back-off with the DC power consumption and band gap devices like GaN (Gallium Nitride), the
power added efficiency of 20Watt GaAs FET compression point will be 3-4 dB so at back off
SSPA developed for space applications. DC the gain will change by 3-4 dB for which gain
power consumption does not reduce at the same compensation will be must. Most of the
rate as output power. So efficiency reduces published work does not emphasize on such
drastically at every 3 dB output power back-off. reliability aspects. The proposed design will
ensure that the device’s reliability is not degraded
III. THEORY under the overdrive conditions also for space
application.
The DC power consumption of the devices can
be changes by either changing the Drain voltage For satellite applications class B or AB is
Vds or by changing the Drain current Ids. The preferred for optimum performance in terms of
drain current can be changed by changing gate-to better linearity and efficiency. The following
source voltage Vgs. Most of the authors [13-15] explanation demonstrates the relation of the
have proposed to vary Vds and few authors have efficiency at saturation and at back off for fixed
proposed to vary both. It is not clear from these drain voltage [15]. Under ideal fixed voltage
works that when the bias parameters are changed class B operation, the ratio of drain efficiency
how the impedance matching of the devices and with variable and fixed drain voltage given by
other parameters for linearity is taken care. For
ground applications it do not matter much which dVar 1
(1)
parameter is varied as there is not much concern dfixed
1 2
for reliability as for space applications. Many of
the authors have not explained the details about
Where represents the FET “ideally factor” and
which parameter should be varied for different
β= Pout/Pout max, the back-off ratio. For an ideal
devices. For space applications frequent changing
device (α =0), the ratio is always greater than 1
of gate voltage is not recommended because the
indicating higher efficiency under “extended
drain current will also vary and hence the
saturation” operation. Thus above discussion
reliability of the device. The most important
shows that the SSPA offers higher efficiency at
saturation as compared to the back-off condition. The block diagram of SSPA with Dynamic Bias
approach is shown in Figure.1
IV. DESIGN, OPTIMIZATION AND SIMULATION
results are presented in tabular form rather than Table 4: Test data for 10 Watt SSPA with Dynamic
the graphical representation. Bias.
Table 2: Look up table for EEPROM controller Pin Pout IRF VDC Pdc η (%)
(dBm) (dBm) (Amp) (volt) (watt)
18 38.93 2.44 9.0 21.96 35.36
Output of Input to Input power level
17 37.95 2.21 8.49 18.76 33.24
ADC (volt) DAC (volt)
16 36.95 1.87 8.10 15.15 32.71
4 9.0 Nominal RF input
15 35.95 1.70 7.74 13.16 29.91
3.5 7.73 1 dB input back-off
14 34.95 1.60 7.61 12.18 25.67
3.0 6.96 2 dB input back-off
13 33.95 1.53 7.53 11.52 21.55
2.5 6.25 3 dB input back-off
2.0 5.74 4 dB input back-off
1.5 5.40 5 dB input back-off Table 5: shows the efficiency improvement using
flexible 10 Watt SSPA
VI. TESTING OF ACTUAL HARDWARE. Table 5: The efficiency improvement using flexible 10
The interfacing circuit of Dynamic Biasing Watt SSPA
Controller is shown in the Figure.2
Pin (dBm) Efficiency DC power
improvement improvement
(%) (watt)
Input From detector
18 (Nominal) 0 0
17 1.49 2.19
Output to EPC
ADC 0820
EEPROM
DAC 0800
16 5.19 4.64
89C52
15 6.91 5.52
14 6.80 5.66
13 6.22 5.63
Table 7: 200 watt GaN device with dynamic bias [4] Kyounghoon Yang, Member, IEEE, George I. Haddad,
Life Fellow, IEEE, and Jack R. East, Member, IEEE High-
Pin Pout IRF VDC Pdc η (%) Efficiency Class-A Power Amplifiers with a Dual-Bias-
(dBm) (dBm) (Amp) (volt) (watt) Control Scheme,” in IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON
39 53.0 11.7 28 327.6 58.5 MICROWAVE THEORY AND TECHNIQUES, VOL. 47,
38 52.6 10.4 25.2 262.1 57.8 NO. 8, AUGUST 1999
37 52.0 9.3 22.9 213.0 56.7
[5] F. H. Raab, “Class-F power amplifiers with maximally
36 51.2 8.3 21 174.3 55
flat waveforms,” IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory Tech., vol.
45, pp. 2007–2012, Nov. 1997.
VII. CONCLUSION [6] T. Sowlati, C. A. T. Salama, J. Sitch, G. Rabjohn, and D.
Smith, “Low voltage, high efficiency GaAs Class E power
amplifiers for wireless transmitters,” IEEE J. Solid-State
The concept of the flexible SSPA has been Circuits., vol. 30, pp. 1074–1080, Oct.1995.
demonstrated on device level with hardware [7] B. Ingruber, W. Pritzl, and G. Magerl, “High efficiency
realization using the dynamic biasing approach harmonic control amplifier,” in IEEE MTT-S Int. Microwave
for on-Board space applications. It can be seen Symp. Dig., 1996, pp. 859–862.
[8] F. H. Raab, B. E. Sigmon, R. G. Myers, and R. M.
from the measured results that a considerable Jackson, “High efficiency L-band Kahn-technique
amount of power, 2 watt in 10 watt SSPA and 90 transmitter,” in IEEE MTT-S Int. Microwave Symp. Dig.,
watt in 200 watt SSPA, at 3dB input back-off can 1998, pp. 585–588.
be saved using this approach. Using this SSPA [9] M. Iwamoto, A. Williams, P. F. Chen, A. G. Metzger, L.
the satellite transmit power can be varied E. Larson, and P. M. Asbeck, "An extended Doherty
amplifier with high efficiency over a wide power range,"
automatically to meet the losses due to IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory & Tech., vol. 49, no. 12,
atmosphere and rain fading. The reliability of the pp. 2472-2479, December 2001 .
device also can be improved by reducing its drain [10] T. Yamamoto, T. Kitahara, and S. Hiura, "50% drain
voltage and channel temperature. This is efficiency Doherty amplifier with optimized power range for
W-CDMA signal," 2007 IEEE MTT-S Int. Microwave
considered as a remarkable power saving for Symp. Dig., pp. 1263-1266, June 2007.
space application and also the significant [11] M. J. Pelk, W. C. E. Neo, J. R. Gajadharsing, R. S.
technique to improve the link availability for Pengelly, and L. C. N. de Vreede, "A high-efficiency 100-W
DTH application. GaN threeway Doherty amplifier for base-station
applications," IEEE Trans. Microwave Theory & Tech., vol.
56, no. 7, pp. 1582- 1591, July 2008.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT [12] D. F. Kimball, J. Jeong, C. Hsia, P. Draxler, S.
Lanfranco, W. Nagy, K. Linthicum, L. E. Larson, and P. M.
The authors would like to express their deep Asbeck, "High efficiency envelope-tracking W -CDMA
gratitude to Shri A. S. Kiran Kumar, Director, base-station amplifier using GaN HFETs," IEEE Trans.
Microwave Theory & Tech., vol. 54, no. 11, pp. 3848-3856,
Space Applications Centre, Ahmedabad, ISRO, November 2006.
for his encouragement and support for this work. [13] S. Bouthillette and A. Platzker, “High-efficiency L-
The authors would also like to thank each and band variable output power amplifiers for use in
every person who directly or indirectly communication systems,” in IEEE MTT-S Int. Microwave
contributed to make this task successful. Symp. Dig., 1996, pp. 563–566.
[14] A. Darbandi, M. Zoyo, J.Y. Touchais, Y. Butel
“Flexible S-band SSPA for Space Application” IEEE
REFERENCES NASA/ESA Conference on Adaptive Hardware and
[1] G. Hanington, P. F. Chen, V. Radisic, T. Itoh, and P. M. Systems., 2008, pp. 70-76
Asbeck, “Microwave power amplifier efficiency [15] B.D. Geller, F.T. Assal, R.K. Gupta and P.K. Cline, “A
improvement with a 10 MHz HBT DC–DC converter,” in technique for the maintenance of FET power amplifier
IEEE MTT-S Int. Microwave Symp. Dig., 1998, pp. 589– efficiency under backoff,” ZEEE MTT-S Znt. Microwave
592. Spp. Dig., 1989, pp. 949-952.
[2] Ranjan, M., Koo, K.H., Hanington, G., Fallesen, C.
and Sbeck, P.A., “Microwave Power Amplifiers with
Digitally- controlled Power Supply Voltage for High
Efficiency and High Linearity, ” 2000 IEEE Interna-tional
Microwave Symposium DigestMTT-S, Vol.1,pp.493496
(2000).
[3] Shin, S. and Lee, S., “An Adaptive Bias Circuits for
High Efficiency Power Amplifier,”TENCON2000,
Vol.2,pp.3032(2000).