Sequence Detection in Nonlinear Channels: A Convenient Alternative to Analog Predistortion

A new maximum-likelihood sequence detection receiver for spectrally efficient linear modulations on bandlimited bandpass nonlinear channels is proposed. The receiver is based on oversampling the received signal corrupted by noise and nonlinear distortion. Contrary to other solutions in the literature, in the proposed technique there is no need for a bank of matched filters, and the receiver front end reduces to a single lowpass filter. For a given peak power level, a performance gain can be achieved over more traditional approaches to transmission on nonlinear channels, such as those based on predistortion, if a moderate spectral expansion is allowed. To analyze the receiver performance, the concept of distance spectrum is employed, since the minimum distance alone cannot account for a reliable performance evaluation. Both analysis and simulation are carried out for realistic narrowband nonlinear channels, possibly employing reduced-state sequence detection. Appreciable gain margins are confirmed to be possible in these realistic cases.