Theoretical Analysis of the Noise Power Ratio of Nonlinear Power Amplifiers

Abstract

This paper presents a theoretical analysis and derives the amplifier output noise power spectral density result in a closed form when the input to the amplifier is a band limited Gaussian noise. From the computed power spectral density the NPR is evaluated by a simple subtraction. The method can be applied to any amplifier with known input-output characteristics. The method may be applied to analyze various other important characteristics of the nonlinear amplifier such as spectral regrowth that refers to the spreading of the signal bandwidth when a band limited signal is inputted to the nonlinear amplifier. The paper presents numerical results on the NPR as a function of the noise bandwidth, depth level of the notch, and the output power back-off obtained from the analysis presented in the paper.