Abstract:
The invention relates notably to a method for clipping a wideband signal in order to eliminate signal overshots having an amplitude above a predefined threshold before submitting the wideband signal to a power amplifier.  
     According to the invention, the method comprises the steps of:  
     i. subtracting from the wideband signal filtered pulses in phase the said wideband signal, each filtered pulse corresponding to an overshot, the amplitude of each filtered pulse being dependent on the amplitude of the corresponding overshot and on the predefined threshold.  
     ii. repeating at least two successive iterations of step i on said wideband signal.

Description:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION  
         [0001]    The present invention relates to wideband signal transmission over a radio interface.  
           [0002]    Usually, the transmit chain of a radio communication network comprises a power amplifier to amplify a signal before transmission over the radio interface.  
           [0003]    On the one hand, the peak to average ratio (PAR) is an important characteristic of the signal submitted to the power amplifier. The peak to average ratio is defined by the ratio between the highest amplitude of the signal and the average amplitude of the signal. Wideband signals superposing information transmitted by several users using spread spectrum techniques (e.g. CDMA signals) are presenting a near-gaussian frequency distribution with a stringent spectrum mask and wide envelope modulation dynamic resulting in high peak to average ratio (PAR about 10 dB).  
           [0004]    On the other hand, a power amplifier is usually characterized by its efficiency defined as the ratio between the power of the signal at the amplifier output and the total power consumption of the power amplifier.  
           [0005]    A signal having a high peak to average ratio results in a low efficiency of the power amplifier. For a standard compliant amplification of a CDMA signal with a PAR about 10 dB, an over-dimensioning of the amplifier chain of the same order is required (known as power amplifier backoff of about 10 dB). such an over-dimensioning causes big penalties in term of required energy supply or appropriate cooling means at the transmitters of the radio communication network (especially at the base stations). This over-dimensioning is nevertheless necessary not to reach the non-linear domain of the power amplifier characteristics. If this happenend, peaks in the signal (called in the following overshots) would saturate the power amplifier causing high error rate at the receiver due to modulation distortion.  
           [0006]    A known countermeasure to this problem is the clipping technique. It consists in eliminating from the signal the overshots having an amplitude above a threshold amplitude determined according to the characteristics of the power amplifier. This is usually obtained by saturating the signal at this amplitude threshold. The choice of the threshold value is a tradeoff between the power amplifier efficiency, the quality of the transmitted signal and the receiver sensitivity. Indeed, the lower the threshold is set, the more information contained in the overshots will be removed from the signal and the more efficient the receiver will have to be to recover information that have been eliminated because of clipping.  
           [0007]    The usual clipping techniques have to face non linear filtering problems. On the one hand, saturating the signal at the threshold value generate wide band noise not compatible with requirements set to the signal in term of spectrum mask. Indeed, usual clipping techniques cause the signal spectrum to extend beyond the allowed spectrum mask causing interference in adjacent frequency channels. On the other hand, when filtering is performed to eliminate the noise outside the allowed spectrum mask, the memory effect intrinsic to filtering regenerates signal overshots above the desired threshold value.  
           [0008]    These drawbacks are even harder to cope with when the power amplifier is shared between several adjacent wideband carriers to optimize cost and size of the transmitter. In this case, the signal provided to the amplifier is the sum of several frequency multiplexed signals, which tend to have a Raleigh frequency distribution again even if each individual signal has been clipped by the usual known method. A Raleigh frequency distribution shows the same brawbacks in term of overshots as a gaussian distribution.  
           [0009]    Moreover, an acceptable power amplifier efficiency is only provided at the price of tremendous processing efforts not compatible with usual computing capabilities.  
           [0010]    The object of the present invention is to provide a clipping method that fulfills the requirements in term of frequency spectrum range of the clipped signal with a reasonable processing effort.  
           [0011]    Another object of the present invention is to provide a transmitter implementing this method.  
         SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION  
         [0012]    These objects, and others that appear below, are achieved by a method for clipping a wideband signal in order to eliminate signal overshots having an amplitude above a predefined threshold before submitting the wideband signal to a power amplifier, the method comprising the steps of:  
           [0013]    i subtracting from the wideband signal filtered pulses in phase with the wideband signal, each of the filtered pulses corresponding to one of the overshots, the amplitude of each filtered pulses being dependent on the amplitude of the corresponding overshot and on the predefined threshold.  
           [0014]    ii repeating at least two successive iterations of step i on the wideband signal.  
           [0015]    These objects are further achieved by a transmitter for transmit a wideband signal on a radio interface, said transmitter comprising a signal synthesis module, a clipping module to eliminate signal overshots above a predefined threshold, and a power amplifier, said clipping module comprising:  
           [0016]    a pulses generator for generating filtered pulses in phase with said wideband signal, each of said filtered pulses corresponding to one of said overshot, the amplitude of each of said filtered pulses being dependent on the amplitude of said corresponding overshot;  
           [0017]    a subtractor for subtracting said filtered pulses from said wideband signal; and  
           [0018]    a loop for repeating at least twice the processing of said wideband signal by said clipping module.  
           [0019]    The method according to the invention has the advantage to provide an efficient clipping method especially when the power amplifier is shared between several adjacent wideband carriers. Successive iterations of the clipping method are applied to the signal in order to progressively suppress the signal overshots from the biggest to the lowest ones. This presents the advantage to further reduce the processing power necessary for properly clipping the signal and to minimize the distortion of the useful signal.  
           [0020]    Another advantage of this method is to optimize the frequency spectrum purity for the clipped signal. As a consequence, it increases the system capacity since the adjacent channel interference is reduced.  
           [0021]    Another advantage of this method is to increase the output power or the number of simultaneous users for the same power dissipation at the power amplifier as compared with a clipping method as known in the art. From another point of view, the cost of each transmitted Watt is reduced since a higher power amplifier efficiency is attained than with a clipping method as known in the art.  
           [0022]    In another preferred embodiment, the signal to be clipped is oversampled with a predefined high oversampling factor so as to track more precisely the signal overshots.  
           [0023]    Further advantageous features of the invention are defined in the dependent claims.  
           [0024]    This invention is based on a priority application EP 00 44 0268 which is hereby incorporated by reference. 
       
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
       [0025]    Other characteristics and advantages of the invention will appear on reading the following description of a preferred implementation given by way of non-limiting illustrations, and from the accompanying drawings, in which:  
         [0026]    [0026]FIG. 1 shows an embodiment of a clipping module according to the present invention;  
         [0027]    [0027]FIG. 2 shows an embodiment of a transmitter according to the present invention;  
         [0028]    [0028]FIG. 3 shows a flow diagram for a possible implementation of the clipping method according to the present invention;  
         [0029]    [0029]FIG. 4 shows an example of the clipping method according to the present invention applied on a signal;  
         [0030]    [0030]FIG. 5 shows the power spectrum of a multi-carrier signal composed of adjacent carriers clipped according to the present invention. 
     
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION  
       [0031]    According to the invention, the proposed clipping module eliminates signal overshots above a predefined threshold in that it generates filtered pulses in phase with the signal to be clipped, each filtered pulse corresponding to an overshot, the amplitude of each filtered pulses being dependent on the amplitude of said corresponding overshot.  
         [0032]    [0032]FIG. 1 shows an embodiment of a clipping module according to the present invention. Clipping module  10  comprises a signal envelope detector  11 , an overshot detector  12 , an overshot selector  13 , a pulse train generator  14 , a low pass filter  15 , and a subtractor  16 . Clipping module receives as input a baseband signal consisting of an in-phase part, Input I, and an in-quadrature part, Input Q. Preferably, the base band signal is represented in digital form so that clipping module  10  performs digital processing.  
         [0033]    In-phase, Input I, and in-quadrature, Input Q, parts of the signal are connected to signal envelope detector  11  which determines the envelope of the signal (i.e. by determining the module of the vector having the in-phase value as real part and the in-quadrature value as complex part in the complex space).  
         [0034]    The signal envelope is submitted to overshot detector  12  which compares the amplitude of the signal envelope with a predefined threshold value CLIP. Overshot detector  12  determine the different overshots amplitudes and positions. Preferably, overshot detector  12  norms the amplitude of the overshots according to a predefined function. This function consists in the difference between the overshot amplitude and the threshold value CLIP divided by the overshot amplitude.  
         [0035]    Peak selector  13  selects the overshots that should be taken in account for further processing. A possible selection criterion is the number N of overshots to be kept for further processing in a time window of predefined duration. The highest N overshots in the time window are then selected. An other selection criterion is the distance between two consecutive overshots. This distance should be higher than a predefined distance. Other overshot selection criterion may be envisaged.  
         [0036]    Information on the selected overshot amplitude and position in the time window is submitted to pulse train generator  14  which generates a pulse train in phase with the input signal Input I, Input Q. Preferably the amplitude of the pulse train is equal to zero when no corresponding overshot has been selected and to the difference between the overshot amplitude and the threshold value when an overshot has been selected by overshot selector  13 .  
         [0037]    Pulse train generator  14  detects the phase φ of the base band signal Input I, Input Q and generates a pulse train having the same phase φ. For illustration purpose, the pulse train consists of two parts, the in-phase part, FPT I, obtained by multiplying each sample given by the overshot selector  13  by the real part of the input signal, Input I, and the in-quadrature part, FPT Q, obtained by multiplying each sample given by the overshot detector  13  by the complex part of the input signal, Input Q.  
         [0038]    The two parts of the pulse train are then filtered by a low pass filter  15 . Preferably, low pass filter is a Root Raised Cosine (RRC) digital filter characterized by its length. The coefficient of the RRC filter are preferably stored in a memory not represented on FIG. 1. As known by those skilled in the art, the coefficients of the RRC filter may be chosen different ways without narrowing the scope of the present invention. An analysis of the statistics of the overshots in a CDMA signal permits an optimization in the filter implementation.  
         [0039]    The in-phase part, FPT I, of the filtered pulse train, respectively its in-quadrature part FPT Q, are subtracted from the in-phase part, Input I, of the input signal, respectively from its in-quadrature part, Input Q, at subtractor  16 . Preferably, the two parts of input signal, Input I, Input Q, are submitted to a digital delay  17  before being used at subtractor  16  in order to take into account the processing time needed to generate the filtered pulse train FPT I, FPT Q as well as the intrisic filter group delay. The output of subtractor  16  represents the clipped signal output I, output Q.  
         [0040]    Contrary to usual known clipping methods consisting in saturating the overshots at the threshold value, the method according to the invention consists in subtracting from the input signal filtered pulses pre-tuned in phase and amplitude which mimic as exactly as possible the selected overshot to remove. The method according to the invention respects the spectrum mask of the input signal much better than usual clipping methods.  
         [0041]    A preferred embodiment of the present invention consists in cascading several clipping stages  10  in order to progressively perform clipping reducing thus the complexity of the clipping module.  
         [0042]    [0042]FIG. 2 shows an embodiment of a transmitter according to the present invention in which several clipping stages are cascaded. Transmitter  20  comprises a signal synthesis module  21 , a first clipping stage  101 , a second clipping stage  102 , a usual clipping module  22  and a power amplifier  23 .  
         [0043]    Signal synthesis module  21  constructs a digital signal flow corresponding to the information to be transmitted. Error correcting code, modulation, superposition of multiple users as well as other usual signal processing well known from those skilled in the art are performed in digital form in this module. The signal flow is preferably a CDMA carrier having a predefined chip rate and representing a superposition of several users using different orthogonal spreading sequences.  
         [0044]    The signal flow may also be a superposition of at least two adjacent CDMA carriers. The latter example is especially accurate when the amplification chain is shared between adjacent CDMA carriers in one base station.  
         [0045]    In a preferred embodiment of the invention, the signal synthesis module also comprises an oversampling module to oversample the digital signal flow at a higher rate than the chip rate of the signal (for example, oversampling rate=32 * chip rate). This has the advantage to track more accurately the sudden variations of the signal amplitude in case of signal overshot.  
         [0046]    The oversampled signal at the output of signal synthesis module  21  is submitted to first clipping stage  101  performing a first clipping iteration according to the present invention. The clipped signal is submitted to a second clipping stage  102  performing a second clipping iteration according to the invention. The first clipping step is dedicated to remove a first group of overshots (e.g. the N highest ones) while the second clipping step is dedicated to remove the remaining ones. It will be clear for those skilled in the art that the number of successive clipping stages is not limited to two. Any number of successive clipping stages may be cascaded without narrowing the scope of the invention.  
         [0047]    In a preferred embodiment of the invention, the clipped signal at the output of second clipping stage  102  is submitted to a hard clipping stage  22  to remove the remaining minor overshots before entering power amplifier  23 . The hard clipping stage  22  uses a usual clipping method known in the art consisting for example in saturating the signal at the output of second clipping stage  102  at the threshold value clip. Since most of the overshots have already been eliminated by subtraction of a filtered pulse train in both clipping stages  101  and  102 , the difference between the amplitude of the remaining overshots and the threshold value is small.  
         [0048]    [0048]FIG. 3 shows a flow diagram for a possible implementation of the clipping method according to the present invention.  
         [0049]    A preferred implementation of the clipping method according to the invention comprises successive steps  31  to  36 .  
         [0050]    Step  31  consists in determining the baseband signal envelope.  
         [0051]    Step  32  consists in detecting the position and the amplitude of signal envelope overshots having an amplitude above a predefined threshold value.  
         [0052]    Step  33  consists in selecting a predefined number of overshot per time window.  
         [0053]    Step  34  consists in generating a pulse train in phase with the baseband signal by considering only the position, the phase and the amplitude of the overshots.  
         [0054]    Step  35  consists in filtering the pulse train with a low pass filter. The central coefficient of the central filter is equal to one so that the amplitude of the filtered pulse train at a location corresponding to an overshot is equal to the difference between the amplitude of the signal overshot and the predefined threshold value.  
         [0055]    Step  36  consists in subtracting the filtered pulse train from the signal. Preferably, the signal should be delayed by a delay equal to the processing time required to generate the filtered pulse train in order to keep the signal and the filtered pulse train synchronized.  
         [0056]    In a preferred embodiment of the invention, the step  31  to  36  are repeated a predefined number of times.  
         [0057]    [0057]FIG. 4 shows an example applying the clipping method according to the present invention to a signal.  
         [0058]    x-coordinate of the diagram represents the time and more precisely the sample number of the signal in the time window, y-coordinate of the diagram represents the amplitude of the signal envelope.  
         [0059]    Input signal envelope ISE, threshold value THR, pulse train PT, filtered pulse train envelope FPTE as well as clipped signal envelope CSE are represented on the diagram.  
         [0060]    Input signal envelope overshots OV 1 , . . . , OV 7  corresponds to peaks of input signal envelope ISE having an amplitude higher than threshold value TRH.  
         [0061]    Pulse train PT is deduced from input signal envelope ISE in that a pulse is associated to the maximum point of an overshot. All other values of the pulse train are set to zero. The amplitude of a pulse in the pulse train is equal to the difference between the overshot amplitude and the threshold value. Preferably, because of digital processing, the pulse is a Dirac pulse. Other pulse forms may be envisaged in the framework of this invention. Filtered pulse train envelope FPTE is obtained by filtering pulse train PT by a low pass filtered having a central coefficient of one. Clipped signal envelope CSE is obtained by subtracting filtered pulse train envelope FPTE from input signal envelope ISE.  
         [0062]    [0062]FIG. 5 shows the power spectrum of a multi-carrier signal composed of adjacent carriers clipped according to the present invention. The signal spectrum, SpectSig, represents the range of frequencies composing the signal (x-coordinate) and the amplitude of this frequencies (y-coordinate). The spectrum mask, SpectMask, represents the requirements, usually set by telecommunications standardization bodies, the signal spectrum should fulfill to be standard compliant.  
         [0063]    Thanks to the clipping method according to the present invention, the signal amplitude in the frequency range extending out of the allowed frequency band is lower than the spectrum mask requirements and as a consequence standard compliant. This has the advantage of minimizing adjacent channel interference and as a consequence increasing the capacity of the radio communication system.