Multilevel Outphasing with Over-the-Air Combining in Large Antenna Arrays

This article investigates the feasibility of combinerless multilevel outphasing transmitter as a potential architecture for large millimeter-wave (mmWave) phased arrays. We consider two distinct ways of distributing the component signals to the antennas and develop a model for the received signal at each radiated spatial direction from a phased array. Based on the received signal model, we derive expressions for the signal-to-distortion ratio as well as total power experienced at each spatial direction. Furthermore, antenna branch mismatches, overload distortion and quantization are considered, and an analytical model for the signal-to-distortion ratio at the intended receiver is derived. We additionally establish a model for comparing the achievable energy efficiency to those of the relevant reference methods. Extensive numerical experiments are carried out to verify the analytical works, and to assess the commonly used metrics of error vector magnitude (EVM) and total radiated power adjacent channel leakage ratio (TRP-ACLR). It is shown that the combinerless architecture is a valid option for mmWave phased arrays, demonstrating favorable EVM results and TRP-ACLR beyond the 28 dBc limit imposed by the 3GPP, even in the presence of the considered distortions. The conducted energy efficiency assessment shows that efficiency of the reference methods can be exceeded with sufficient amount of outphasing levels. The considered architecture is thus an interesting alternative for addressing the linearity vs. energy-efficiency challenge in mmWave phased-array systems.