1. Introduction
At the current stage of development of wireless technologies like 5G/6G communication system networks based on antenna arrays with digital beam forming (Massive Multiple Input Multiple Output system), it is impossible to manage without such digital signal processing algorithms as digital correction of the nonlinear distortion DPD (Digital Predistortion). Nonlinear distortions of the signal occurring inside the transceiver path strongly distort the spectrum of this signal, as shown in
Figure 1, where it is shown in red, and the main signal is blue in color, respectively.
However, the international wireless standards like 3GPP, ETSI impose strict requirements on the spectral power of the radiated signal. The use of digital nonlinear distortion correction algorithms allows for meeting the requirements of standards and at the same time positively affecting the overall efficiency, that is, the energy consumption of the entire signal receiving and transmitting system. There are different approaches to the implementation of such algorithms, both purely digital and analog and mixed. One of them, a purely mathematical approach to the description of nonlinear distortions, we will describe below. However, let us consider the general statement of the problem of digital correction (DPD) with the following structure of the model of correction as shown in
Figure 2.
Here,
is a nonlinear operator reflecting the essence of nonlinear correction—imagine it as some function dependent on parameters
.
is a nonlinear operator identified with a nonlinear device which generates some complex vector
and also defines some vector from a complex field of numbers
on which the operator
depends. Under the error
we will understand the difference between vectors
Y and
Then we can formulate the requirements for the definition of parameters
as follows:
, where
is Euclidean norm. Considering
the above introduced expression can be rewritten as
This equation will be task of DPD (Digital Predistortion). Here, we can highlight several important sub-tasks, which in themselves are quite complex both theoretically and computationally:
- (a)
Since we have formulated, in fact, the problem of approximation of a function, we need to derive the analytical regression dependence on the parameters . How this function is defined will depend on the quality of the correction of nonlinear distortions;
- (b)
The procedure of searching for the parameters is a classical optimization problem, which is a linear or nonlinear regression with respect to the parameters . Finding efficient methods of convex or non-convex optimization is one of the major difficulties in this problem;
- (c)
Compression of a function , i.e., reducing its computational complexity.
One of the methods to solve the problem (a) for the DPD task is the Volterra functional series. And it is also the conventional tool to characterize the complex nonlinear dynamics in various fields including the radiophysics, mechanical engineering, electronic and electrical engineering, energy sciences (here, readers may refer, e.g., to review [
1] or [
2]). Volterra series are widely employed to represent the input-output relationship of nonlinear dynamical systems with memory. Volterra power series are among the best-understood nonlinear system representations in signal processing. Such an integral functional series (also called Fréchet-Volterra series)
was proposed by Maurice Fréchet for a continuous nonlinear dynamical systems representation [
3,
4]. Here, readers may also refer to overview [
5] and monograph [
6] for more details on relevant Lyapunov–Liechtenstein operator and Lyapunov–Schmidt methods in the theory of non-linear equations.
The role of a reproducing kernel Hilbert space in the development of a unifying view of the Volterra theory and polynomial kernel regression is presented in [
7].
In (1),
is the input signal and
is the output of a single-input-single-output (SISO) nonlinear system and
are the multidimensional Volterra kernels (or transfer functions) to be identified based on nonlinear system’s response
as a reaction on input
(
Figure 3). It is to be noted that for the basic case
, we have a conventional Finite Impulse Response (FIR) linear model which is optimal in the least-squares sense.
The Fréchet theorem [
3] generalizes the famous Weierstrass approximation theorem which characterizes the set of continuous functions on a compact interval via uniform approximation by algebraic polynomials.
Power series (
1) characterize the stationary dynamical systems. Stationarity here means that a transfer function does not vary during the transient process as
. More general power series (
2) models nonstationary dynamics when transfer functions depend explicitly on time
tThe Volterra series is an essential tool for the mathematical modeling of the nonlinear dynamical systems appearing in the digital pre-distortion (DPD) iterative process [
8]. DPD as we described before is an important part of the digital signal processing algorithms used in transmitters and receivers. Particularly for short-distance applications where the limitations of the transceiver are more significant. DPD is used to improve performance by compensating for the imperfect response of transmitter components, e.g., in [
9] the frequency selective DPD was proposed. In [
9] the Volterra series model structure consists of a basic linear part and a partial-band pre-compensation part, moreover, a generalized indirect learning architecture is employed to extract the coefficients. Several methods have been studied for DPD, with Volterra series-based methods being popular due to their ease of implementation and the straightforward interpretation of their nonlinear terms. The key issue with Volterra series is the curse of dimension: as the order of the series increases, the number of terms involved in the expansion grows exponentially, making it computationally demanding. On the other hand, estimating the functional coefficients (Volterra kernels) of the Volterra integral functional series can be challenging. It is often considered in its discrete form and requires a significant amount of data and complex optimization algorithms to find the best fit for the model coefficients. An alternative approach based on problem reduction to multi-dimensional integral equations solution [
10,
11] requires a special probe signal design.
In present paper, the alternative approach for the identification of Volterra kernels is proposed using the direct collocation method. The results are compared with the conventional least squares method (LSM) widely employed for the Volterra series identification problem in the telecommunication domain.
The rest of the paper is structured as follows: The subsequent section provides the problem statement.
Section 3 focuses on the collocation method.
Section 4 carries out computational experiments with LSM, while
Section 5 discusses concluding remarks and future work.
2. Identification Problem Statement
Let us consider the following segment of the truncated Volterra series (
1) for
Our current problem in this section is to determine the kernels and by a known input and output pair .
In contrast to the linear case
, when it is sufficient to specify a single pair
to determine the kernel
, in the nonlinear case
, for the unique identification of the two-dimensional kernel
, it is necessary to specify a two-dimensional continuum of equalities. This means that problem (
4) has an infinite set of solutions.
Remark 1. It should be noted that if we consider this problem as an integral equation with two unknown functions and , then this problem is essentially ill-posed. There are an infinite number of solutions and this problem is insufficiently defined. In this regard, no classical numerical methods designed for integral equations are applicable in this case. And as a result, there are no any attempts to solve the problem in this form in the literature.
Remark 2. A fundamentally different situation takes place in the problem of determining an unknown input signal with a known output signal after kernels identification. It is to be noted that in this case we have the problem of nonlinear Volterra integral equations’ solution. Here, readers may refer to Section 9 in book [11], papers [12,13,14] and references therein regarding the Kantorovich principal solutions and the blow-up phenomenon. Within the framework of this paper, from a practical point of view, we will be satisfied with any pair of approximately found kernels
and
that provides a sufficiently small residual norm
Denoted by the basis functions form a complete orthogonal system of functions on the segment .
We look for an approximate solution of the problem (
3) in the form of segments of series of expansions according to the selected system of basis functions
3. Collocation Method
Collocation-type methods are widely used in the discretization of various kinds of integro-functional equations [
15]. With sufficiently good accuracy and stability, they are also computationally less expensive in comparison with projection methods of the Galerkin type requiring additional integration [
16].
In order to determine the unknown coefficients
and
, we introduce a uniform grid of nodes
where
is number of nodes.
Substitute (
5) in (
3) and then demand that the equalities be fulfilled at the points (
6)
Denote for a simplicity
, and transform the last equalities as follows
As a system of basis functions
, we choose Chebyshev polynomials of the first kind
Sufficient conditions for the applicability of Chebyshev polynomial expansions of the form (
5) are the limitation of the first derivatives of the approximated kernels. For more detailed information about convergence, we refer, for example, to the book [
17].
Since these polynomials are orthogonal on the segment , we apply a linear mapping to the segment .
The controlled norm of the residual corresponding to the selected values of
and
takes the form
Let us denote . The number of equalities (number of nodes in the grid) equals the number of unknown coefficients.
Thus, we have the following system of linear algebraic equations
with respect to the unknown coefficients
and
. Here,
6. Conclusions
Two numerical approaches to solving the problem of identification of the Volterra model were proposed in the paper. As can be seen from the presented results, both methods showed stable convergence. Convergence here can be interpreted only as the dependence of the residual on the increase in the number of terms in the expansions of kernels by Chebyshev polynomials (
5). And this dependence is presented in numerical results.
It is to be noted, from the point of view of the arithmetic complexity of calculations, the collocation method turns out to be less expensive. And this factor is more pronounced the more parameters of the model are to be determined. This is due to the need to calculate a significantly larger number of integrals proportional to the square of the number of measurements being processed.
Further development of research suggests an increase in the number of terms
n in the model (
1) to identify a more accurate functional relationship between the input and output signals. It is also planned to develop special methods for approximating integrals (
12) for the case of using input signals of a more complex structure, including fast oscillating signals.