A radio frequency (RF) transmitter includes a power amplifier comprising a plurality of power amplifier cells. At least one digital signal processing module of the RF transmitter is operably coupled to the power amplifier and comprises at least one digital pre-distortion component arranged to apply at least one digital pre-distortion codeword to the plurality of power amplifier cells, wherein the at least one digital pre-distortion codeword is applied to at least one of the plurality of power amplifier cells via a digital filter. A combiner is arranged to combine outputs of the plurality of power amplifier cells thereby generating an analogue RF signal for transmission over an RF interface based at least partly on the digitally filtered at least one digital pre-distortion codeword.

Methods and systems for vector combining power amplification are disclosed herein. In one embodiment, a plurality of signals are individually amplified, then summed to form a desired time-varying complex envelope signal. Phase and/or frequency characteristics of one or more of the signals are controlled to provide the desired phase, frequency, and/or amplitude characteristics of the desired time-varying complex envelope signal. In another embodiment, a time-varying complex envelope signal is decomposed into a plurality of constant envelope constituent signals. The constituent signals are amplified equally or substantially equally, and then summed to construct an amplified version of the original time-varying envelope signal. Embodiments also perform frequency up-conversion.

In order to realize a power-saving power amplifier compatible with Carrier Aggregation technology using a plurality of bands, with a small size and low cost, while improving the amplitude accuracy and power efficiency, a transmission device of the present invention comprises: a modulation means that generates, from a baseband signal corresponding to each of the plurality of bands, a first and a second constant-envelope signals having different phases; a power amplification means that amplifies respective ones of the first and second constant-envelope signals generated by the modulation means; and a combining means that combines together the first and second constant-envelope signals amplified by the power amplification means and thereby generating an RF signal in which amplitude information contained in each of the baseband signals corresponding to respective ones of the plurality of bands is restored.

An amplifier arrangement comprises N amplifier stages (10.sub.1 to 10.sub.N), wherein N is an integer equal or greater than four. The amplifier arrangement comprises a cascade of quarter wavelength transmission lines coupled between an output of an amplifier of a first amplifier stage (10.sub.1) and an output node (15) of the amplifier arrangement, wherein the cascade comprises N−1 quarter wavelength transmission lines (11.sub.1 to 11.sub.N−1). An amplifier of the Nth stage (10.sub.N) is coupled to the output node (15), and remaining amplifiers between the first and Nth stages (10.sub.2 to 10.sub.N−1) coupled to successive junctions in the cascade of quarter wavelength transmission lines (11.sub.1 to 11.sub.N−1). The amplifier arrangement is further configured such that apart from first and second amplifiers (10.sub.1 and 10.sub.2) coupled to first and second junctions of the cascade of quarter wavelength transmission lines, the remaining amplifiers (10.sub.3 to 10.sub.N) are coupled to their respective junctions of the cascade of quarter wavelength transmission lines such that successive pairs of amplifiers are either coupled via respective connecting quarter wavelength transmission lines (13) to their respective junctions, or coupled directly to their respective junctions.

Methods and systems for power amplification with digital quantized power supply with multiple amplifiers are disclosed herein. In one embodiment, In one embodiment, a time-varying envelope signal is sampled, quantized and decomposed into several constituent signals that are individually amplified, and then combined to form a desired amplified version of the quantized time-varying envelope. Amplitude, phase and/or frequency characteristics of one or more of the signals and supply voltages V.sub.dd and source current of one or more amplifiers are digital controlled based on the information provided by quantization process and slow and fast power control information. Amplitude, phase and/or frequency characteristics of one or more of the constituent signals to be amplified are controlled to provide the desired amplitude, phase, frequency, and/or spectral characteristics of the desired quantized version of the time-varying envelope signal.

A tunable vector recombination amplifier comprises an input, an output, first and second amplifier circuit paths each including a respective phase shifter to receive a respective input signal from the input and to apply a respective phase shift to produce a respective phase-shifted signal, a respective interstage impedance matching network, and a respective amplifier connected between the respective phase shifter and interstage impedance matching network to receive and amplify the respective phase-shifted signal to produce a respective amplified signal, first and second controllable DC voltage sources each coupled to a respective amplifier and configured to provide a respective supply voltage to the respective amplifier, values of the supply voltages being independently controllable, and an output amplifier stage to receive, amplify, and vectorially combine the amplified signals to produce a combined signal having a specified phase determined by the phase shifts and supply-voltage values and a specified amplitude at the output.

According to an aspect, there is provided a method for power-amplification of a transmission signal, comprising: obtaining the transmission signal with phase and amplitude modulation; generating a power-amplified polar signal for approximating a power-amplified transmission signal by power-amplifying a first constant-envelope signal with one of two or more first amplification factors based on the transmission signal; generating an outphasing pair of a first power-amplified outphasing signal and a second power-amplified outphasing signal based on the transmission signal; and combining the power-amplified polar signal, the first power-amplified outphasing signal and the second power-amplified outphasing signal to provide the power-amplified transmission signal.

Examples disclosed herein relate to a vector modulator architecture, having an input splitter network configured to receive a radio frequency (RF) input signal and generate a plurality of quadrature signals at different phases, a variable gain amplifier (VGA) stage coupled to the input splitter network and configured to apply a first gain to one or more of the plurality of quadrature signals, a power combiner coupled to the VGA stage and configured to combine the plurality of quadrature signals into a combined RF signal, and a power amplifier (PA) stage coupled to the power combiner and configured to apply a second gain to the combined RF signal and generate an output RF signal. Other examples disclosed herein relate to an antenna system for autonomous vehicles and a radar system for use in an autonomous driving vehicle.

In some examples, a hybrid Chireix-Doherty amplifier comprises a first and second input network, a main amplifier coupled to a first output of the first input network, an auxiliary amplifier coupled to a second output of the second input network, and a combiner network. The combiner network is coupled to a first output of the main amplifier and an output of the auxiliary amplifier. The combiner network includes an output node for coupling to a load, e.g., an antenna of a base station for a radio network. The main amplifier is implemented as an inverse class-F amplifier.

A Doherty amplifier is configured to include a first transistor that amplifies a first signal and outputs the amplified first signal, a second transistor that amplifies a second signal and outputs the amplified second signal, and a combining circuit that combines the amplified first signal output from the first transistor and the amplified second signal output from the second transistor and outputs a combined signal of the amplified first signal and the amplified second signal, in which a signal mode in which the first signal amplified by the first transistor and the second signal amplified by the second transistor are combined in phase and a signal mode in which the first signal amplified by the first transistor and the second signal amplified by the second transistor are combined out of phase are switched in accordance with a frequency, and an operation mode is switched to a Doherty operation mode or an outphasing operation mode depending on the switched signal mode.