Digital Predistortion of Power Amplifier Non-Linearity Applied to CCSDS/DVB-S2 Satellite Telemetry

The CNES (French Space Agency) has studied memoryless predistortion techniques for power amplifier nonlinearity of satellite payload telemetry. These techniques are applied to high order modulations taken from the DVB-S2 standard and the associated CCSDS blue book. An easy-toimplement calibration method was also developed. The predistortion was implemented at two times the symbol rate after Square Root Raised Cosine shaping on a breadboard model of a 16APSK modulator associated to a Solid State Power Amplifier. It allows to reduce the amplifier back-off and thus to increase the power added efficiency for an equivalent signal quality.