A polarization-amplitude-phase modulation scheme for improving the power amplifier energy efficiency

To improve the power amplifier (PA) energy efficiency, a polarization–amplitude–phase modulation (PAPM) scheme in wireless communication is proposed. The proposed scheme introduces the signal’s polarization state (PS), amplitude, and phase as the information-bearing parameters. Thus, the data rate can be further enhanced on the basis of the traditional amplitude–phase modulation. Also, since the transmitted signal’s PS completely manipulated by orthogonally dual-polarized antennas is unaffected by PA, PAPM can let PA work in its nonlinear region to acquire high PA efficiency. To further optimize the PA energy efficiency based on PAPM, a constrained optimization problem regarding the output back-off value and the ratio between the data carried by the PS and the amplitude–phase is formulated, and the distribution of the optimum solutions is presented. The simulation results show that PAPM can improve the PA energy efficiency significantly.