Chapter 23: RF and Hardware Aspects

Learning Objectives

• Describe superheterodyne and direct-conversion transceiver architectures and analyse the impact of I/Q imbalance on constellation quality
• Model power amplifier nonlinearity using the Rapp model, derive the 1 dB compression point and third-order intercept point (IP3), and explain the PAPR--efficiency trade-off
• Quantify ADC quantisation noise via the SQNR formula, analyse capacity loss from finite-resolution ADCs, and apply Bussgang decomposition for 1-bit massive MIMO receivers
• Characterise oscillator phase noise using the Lorentzian PSD model, distinguish common phase error (CPE) from inter-carrier interference (ICI) in OFDM, and determine phase noise requirements per subcarrier spacing
• Compare analog, digital, and hybrid beamforming architectures in terms of RF chain count, power consumption, and spectral efficiency
• Apply the OMP algorithm for sparse precoding in hybrid beamforming systems and quantify the performance gap to fully digital beamforming