Symbol-Rate Baseband Signal Model for RF Pulse-Width Modulation Transmitters

Aiming to shed light on the operation of fully-digital transmitters, we present the first symbol-rate baseband model that makes explicit the inter-symbol interference introduced by the RF pulse-width modulation (RF-PWM). The proposed model expresses the transmitter output as symbols plus interference, paving the way for the derivation of in-band performance metrics of the communication system. Then, we find an approximation for the error vector magnitude that allows us to evaluate the impact of the oversampling ratio, the statistics of the transmitted symbols and the shaping pulse in the transmitter performance. Another advantage of the model is that simulation times are much shorter since it does not require interpolation to appreciate the PWM distortion. To obtain the model, we first assume a generic expression of the continuous-time signal to be transmitted, in terms of the information symbols and the reconstruction filter. This allows us to express the nonlinear differential equation that models the intrinsic distortion also in terms of the sent symbols. Then, we elaborate on the formulation of the continuous-time RF-PWM distortion to procure an expression of the received signal sampled at symbol rate. The article concludes with a numerical validation of the model, and a simulation of the bit error rate of the system.